


Not My First Kiss

by embyrinitalics



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Chef!Link, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Doctoral Student!Zelda, F/M, Modern AU, fluff for days, zelink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27400291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embyrinitalics/pseuds/embyrinitalics
Summary: BotW Modern AU, Zelink. He’s a self-made world-class chef. She’s a doctoral student at Lanayru University studying Archaeotechnology. A chance meeting between these perfect strangers leads to a collision of worlds and ideals—and the intersection of matters of the mind and matters of the heart is a lot messier than Zelda would like.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	1. Not My First Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on ffn December 2017. Inspired by the delightful fic "Cooking and Other Pleasures," by Wavebreeze.

This isn't the first time I've been kissed by a beautiful girl in a noisy, overcrowded room, but it is the first time I have absolutely no clue who she is. We part and she gives me a breathless smile.

"I'm so glad you're here," she says, but despite her dazzling smile there is a gentle crease between her eyebrows that suggests something is amiss. "I had almost given up on you."

"Um," I hesitate, my hands still lingering on her waist. Her brow draws just slightly closer together when I have nothing else to add, and while the smile stays plastered in place her eyes seem trapped in a constant flux between desperate hope and alarm. They're depthless and blue, and unmistakably asking for help. I laugh a little awkwardly, recovering myself with debatable success, and stammer, "Sorry I kept you waiting."

I feel her exhale in relief, her ribcage falling slightly between my hands. "You're here now, that's all that matters," she says, her eyes glued to mine as she unlaces her fingers from behind my neck and takes my arm. "Let's get a drink."

"Ok," I answer slowly, and she gives me a tiny, encouraging nod.

She leans into my arm as I lead us to the bar, trying to keep the confusion off my face and trying not to focus on the burning sensation lingering on my lips. We slide onto the stools, and her shoulders ease imperceptibly, like she's passed some kind of test.

"Thanks," she whispers as she pulls herself closer to the bar, elongating the 's' until the word tapers off into a sigh. I let my eyes begin to scan the room for signs of trouble and she suddenly kicks me under the counter. "No, no, don't look."

"Ow," I murmur, obediently bringing my eyes back to her face and managing to stifle my reflexive frown and replace it with an insincere smile. She runs her hand across the blonde tresses gathered at her temple, pulling the waves off to one side absently, and for a moment I forget that she kicked me.

I take a moment to look her over while she's distracted. She's wearing a black dress with an asymmetrical, ocean blue paisley pattern studded with rhinestones blossoming over the fabric clinging to the right side of her torso, shimmering iridescently in the light when she moves like a spatter of watercolors in an abstract painting. Her dangling Triforce earrings have sapphires embedded into the bottom left triangle, and when they catch the light and sparkle I find myself thinking absently that they resemble her eyes. As though summoned, her gaze flicks up to mine, and suddenly I'm feeling uncomfortably warm.

"Order me something with an umbrella," she suggests quietly as the bartender approaches us, her perfect smile reappearing again.

I order her an _Abduction by Them_ , my favorite cream cocktail, because I remember hearing that the Chateau Romani liqueur here is excellent. I decide I should probably stay alert and settle for a Lon lager, in case I've gotten myself into more than I bargained for. She slides her hand gently over my forearm when I rest it on the countertop, and I can't help but laugh a little at how thick she's laying it on. The drinks arrive and I reach for mine immediately.

"Not that this isn't terribly fun," I murmur, bringing the effervescent amber liquid to my mouth, "but I'm hoping you'll eventually tell me what you're hiding from, and that it isn't the law."

She crosses her legs toward me, letting the open toe of one of her strappy heels brush against my ankle as she sips the cocktail out of a pair of tiny black straws, and her eyes glimmer with laughter. "Ex-boyfriend," she confides.

"Don't tell me," I smirk, feigning lovestruck delight at odds with our conversation. Not that I'm not actually delighted; she's gorgeous and precocious and even though I know she's only doing it to spite another man I can't help but revel in all the attention she's giving me. "You came here tonight hoping to prove your relevance to yourself and that you've moved on, and then he shows up with some svelte brunette hanging on his arm and sees you before you can make a clean getaway."

"Redhead, actually," she says, giving the ice in her drink a stir, and then her eyes flick back up to mine and the smile grows a bit. "Sorry I startled you. But I saw you were alone and I was desperate."

I grimace a little, going in for another sip. "Not the most flattering logic I've heard all night."

She giggles, lines pulling at her eyes as her laughter draws her features into a more genuine smile, and my pulse quickens suddenly. Which is stupid, because she's not actually interested. And I'm stupid, because suddenly I'm hoping she is.

"That's not exactly what I meant. I was trying to say that I don't make a habit of kissing unsuspecting strangers and forcing them to buy me drinks." She takes the corner of her bottom lip in her teeth gently, her expression turning repentant, and I go rigid as I will myself not to stare at her mouth. "I'm sure it was a bit of a shock."

"It was a pleasant surprise," I assure her, hoping it came across more flirtatious than it did honest, and realizing it probably didn't, and that I've been staring into her eyes for too long now and that she's begun to notice and that I definitely need more beer. I take another swig, but when I put the glass down her face is inches from mine, and she shifts to the inside so her mouth is hovering near my ear, her delicate perfume wafting enticingly over me so I have to struggle not to lean closer and breathe deep of her scent.

Although, given the parts we're playing, she might not mind…

"I really appreciate you playing along. I've already caught him looking this way twice with an expression that's doing wonders for my self-esteem," she says, tracing along my jaw with her fingernails as she pulls away, and between that and the slow circles she's still drawing on my ankle she's really and truly starting to drive me crazy.

"Yeah, well, you owe me big time," I manage even though my head is still swimming.

"I'm Zelda," she says quietly, giving me another one of those less brilliant but more genuine smiles that makes my heart pound.

"Link," I answer in kind, and I'm starting to wonder at the absurdity of it all. I had been sitting at that same bar for an hour, watching the world pass by in a disinterested haze, purposefully ignoring every flirtatious attempt at eye contact and every coy smile, miserable and determined to stay that way. And then when I finally grew tired of it all and was ready to leave, fate took the only girl in the room whose eyes could steal the breath right out of my chest and just about threw her at me. She's watching me think, and I can't decide if I love it or hate it. I ask to get her to stop, just before I take another drink, "So, who's the envious no-fairy from whom you've clearly upgraded?"

"A doctoral student of historical linguistics and archaeology," she says, giving the umbrella an absent twirl in the glass.

"Must be all kinds of fun at parties," I offer, and she bites her lip again as she attempts to quell her smile, and I suppress the excited rush that washes over me when she does.

"He's also indecently rich," she adds, but I do my best to look unimpressed.

"Sounds spoiled."

She lets the smile go and it's beautiful and pensive. "What about you?"

"I don't have a PhD, if that's what you're asking," I smirk. "I don't take myself that seriously."

Her smile brightens, assuring me that I haven't lost too many points with that admission. But I'm completely taken with her, and in that moment I'm more disinterested than I have ever been in talking about myself. I'm quick to turn the tables.

"But I don't matter. If he waltzes over here in a desperate attempt to win you back, you could make up whatever you want about me and he would be none the wiser. But he'd see right through us if I don't know the right things about you," I point out with intent, and after staring at her hands for a second with a hesitant smile she complies.

"I'm an Archaeotechnologist," she says, wrinkling her nose a little, but I'm too busy being astounded to stop to appreciate how adorable her expression is. I raise my eyebrows so she can tell I'm impressed, but I don't gush about how brilliant she must be in the hopes that she doesn't realize she's way out of my league. "I'm an only child, I play the harp, and I have a chickaloo tree nut allergy."

I nod evenly. "How long have we been dating?"

"Four weeks," she answers without missing a beat.

"How did we meet?"

"At a pictograph gallery, maybe?" she suggests, and then her mouth pulls down into a quick frown. "No, that's boring."

I try to hide my goofy smirk behind my glass but I doubt I succeed. I'm having way too much fun. "Bombchu bowling," I suggest, and she scoffs.

"Definitely not. Too pedestrian," she says. "What about a Goron sumo match?"

"Who picks up girls at a sumo match?" I take another gulp while I mull and make a noise in my throat as my next idea comes to me before I've finished swallowing. "Molduga hunting."

She just rolls her eyes, not even bothering to respond, but I kind of like it.

"I'm initiating too much," she suddenly decides, and she blows my train of thought so completely of the rails that I momentarily forget to smile.

"What?"

"I keep touching you and you aren't reciprocating. I look like a flirt."

"Oh," I chuckle. She's staring at me expectantly with those impossibly blue eyes and I'm starting to feel too warm again. "What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," she shrugs, tilting her head so her earrings sway and a covetous smirk slips over my lips before I can stop it. "Use your imagination."

Oh, she has _no idea_ what she's asking.

My mind is racing a mile a minute as the possibilities start flooding in, and I feel like I'm drowning in them as I filter through the ones that strike me as too forward or slightly creepy or not forward enough. Her skirt is barely brushing her knees, revealing the soft, enticing skin behind them, but that wouldn't be noticeable enough and that's definitely straying out of fake-boyfriend territory. My brain strays to the pleasing ratio of her full hips and her elegant waist but my heart starts beating irregularly and I immediately decide that anything below the throat is off limits. Her hair is tangling temptingly around her shoulders and her lips look too soft and full to be real, and every scenario I formulate inevitably ends with me losing all semblance of control and kissing her way too eagerly—and even though we've technically already shared a kiss I don't know if I can stage another one in a convincing way that doesn't simultaneously leave her feeling assaulted. Suddenly I don't know what to do with my hands.

Why is it that when a girl actually wants me to touch her I fumble like an idiot?

Finally I just laugh. "This is really awkward."

"I managed," she chides, and I give her my best grin.

"Maybe you really _are_ a flirt."

A tiny gasp leaves her mouth before she can stop it, and her slight blush leaves me feeling particularly satisfied with myself. Then I see her gaze flick over my shoulder and she sighs a little, and suddenly I'm irritated with him for interrupting.

"They're getting dinner menus," she mutters.

"So?"

"I wasn't planning on being trapped here all night," she grumbles. "It'll poke a hole in my story if we leave five minutes after we sit down."

"No it won't," I disagree, downing the rest of my drink. "Finish your _Abduction_."

"What? Why?" she demands, eyes narrowing with intrigue, but she reaches for her drink and does as I say before I explain.

"Because, if this was a real date," I assure her, fishing a few Rupees out of my pocket to leave on the counter, "I would've made reservations some place _much_ nicer than this for dinner."

Her eyes scan the room as I stand, appraising the guests, who are all dressed classily enough, and their meals, which are overpriced and probably appetizing to her untrained eye. "This place is nice," she decides. "And _they're_ having dinner here."

"Well, I have higher standards than he does," I say a bit condescendingly, and extend my hand. She takes it, perhaps a little suspiciously, and electricity zings up my arm in such a way that I want to pull her flush against me so I can feel it all over. I wish I had been paying more attention during that kiss.

"This is never going to work," she breathes.

"Have a little faith," I murmur close to her ear as I wrap my arm around her waist and lead her toward the exit. "This isn't my first time playing last-minute-decoy-boyfriend."

"It's not?"

"Well, maybe it is."

She laughs one of those beautiful, genuine laughs before we reach the door, and I think we look pretty smitten. I know I do, anyway.

I lead her out the exit and past the windows until we're decidedly out of sight, and then turn back towards it gently, letting her slide out of my arm as she does the same. I'm pathetic and I miss her immediately.

"See?" I smirk, shoving my hands in my pockets, which effects the twofold purpose of making me look self-assured as well as keeping my hands immobilized. "Clean getaway."

She smiles coyly, staring at her shoes, and agrees, "I never should've doubted you."

"Where are you parked?" I ask, trying to ignore the fact that our time is quickly dwindling.

"I'm not far," she says, gesturing minutely down the street. "I live at Castle Tower."

"I'll walk you," I offer as casually as I can, and start moving before she can object. It's dark after all, and dangerous to go alone. "I'm parked two blocks that way," I add, pointing down the hill towards the water, "but I'll be sure not to pass the bar so they don't see me walking back alone."

She chuckles, acquiescing because she's too nice to tell me no when I'm trying my best to be thoughtful, and walks alongside me. "That's really nice of you," she says, giving me another small but radiant smile as she adjusts the thin shoulder strap of her purse. "Thanks."

"No problem," I assure her, watching the skyscraper get closer by the second. It's late, and we're walking along the main drag, so all the crosswalks are inconveniently green. I can already make out the revolving doors of the lobby. I'm wedged uncomfortably between wanting to make the most out of the remaining two minutes and being afraid of saying something overeager and ruining my chances, and in my indecision we fall into a spell of silence that she doesn't break either. She's quieter, shy even, without an audience to spite, and spends the whole of it staring at the sidewalk. We're crossing the last street and are nearly to the stone steps leading up to the corner-facing lobby when she finally looks at me again.

"Well, here I am," she gestures, giving me an appreciative smile. "Thanks again for the—well, you know. The drink, and getting me out of there with a shred of dignity left, and the walk."

"I had fun tonight," I say, and her smile grows a little.

"Me too."

Now or never.

"Maybe we should do it again," I suggest as casually as I can, and her answering smile does nothing to ease my galloping heartrate.

She tries to put the smile away but doesn't quite succeed, which makes me exceedingly giddy on the inside. At least, I think it's on the inside. Hopefully if it's on the outside she's too distracted to notice.

"Maybe we should," she agrees, playing it cool.

"Maybe," I continue, "you should give me your number, so if I decide I'm willing to play third wheel with you and your ex again I can call you."

She nods, accepting the dig with grace. "Maybe you should get your phone out."

"I don't have my phone," I lie, offering her a pen I pull out of my coat pocket instead.

"I don't have a piece of paper," she counters, but takes the pen anyway.

I smirk, offering her my hand smugly. She rolls her eyes, but takes it anyway and starts writing.

"I haven't done this since I was in high school," she mumbles as she etches the numbers into my palm, her eyes flicking disapprovingly to mine when she's done as she returns the pen—but she's still smiling.

"Goodnight, Zelda," I say as I slowly turn and head back down the street.

"Goodnight," she answers, climbing the stairs.

Before I've taken three steps I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, shooting her a quick text. Immediately I hear the satisfying ding of the resulting notification. I turn again, still backing away, to watch her retrieve it from her purse.

_Dinner?_

Her mouth twists into a wry smile as she taps out a reply, still standing on the top step, and then she disappears into the revolving doors just before my phone goes off.

_Yeah, but after this we're even._

I get the distinct feeling I'm being mocked, but I really don't mind.


	2. Not My First Dinner

This isn't my first dinner at a terribly expensive restaurant where I can't pronounce half the menu items, but it's the first time I'm there to meet a man who's decidedly too good-looking that I know close to nothing about and who makes my pulse fly every time he sends me a stupid text message and Goddesses above what have I gotten myself into?!

I was suspicious the moment he asked if I liked Zoran food. He got us reservations at _Zora's Domain_ , which is notorious for being booked months in advance, but when I asked him how he managed it he just texted me a wink emoji.

The restaurant is hybridized, with one aquarium dining room and one air dining room. The walls double as the aquarium hallways, all bedecked in shells and corals and silken kelp and exotic koi, and whatever isn't made of glass is carved out of smooth, iridescent blue and white stone—everything from the floor tiles to the spires to the chairs and tables. All the lighting is submerged in the floors of the aquarium hallways or in the shimmering pools scattered around the room, casting everything in rippling blue ambient light.

It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful building I have ever seen.

The pools themselves aren't just decorative, either, but also serve as the entrances to the underwater network beneath the building that connects to the river, and Zora guests and staff going between the two dining rooms emerge from them every so often. A stunning Zora woman in a floor length purple sheath dress steps out of the water onto the stone tile with unreal elegance as I take in the splendor, the sound of water droplets falling off her into the pool filling the cavernous room like otherworldly chimes. It overlaps hypnotically with the gentle, rhythmic music that resonates through the dining room: it's as soothing as a lullaby, filled with rich, low notes plucked from a harp and the answering crisp tones of a piano.

He's already seated, awash in ribbons of trembling light that match his wild eyes, and I've been spotted so it's too late to turn tail and run now. A grin spreads slowly across his face, and my pulse rushes in response. Not that I'm surprised; he's spontaneous and clever and ruggedly handsome—in many ways the exact opposite of the men I usually end up dating—and I find myself reverting to much less mature tendencies in his presence.

There's nothing _practical_ about him. We don't have our academic pursuits in common, and that likely means we don't share any of the same social circles, or even the same values. This isn't smart or statistically promising or rational, but he just _excites_ me, and I haven't felt excited about anyone in… well, a long time. The idea of him is new and stimulating and a little dangerous, and I rather like it. Not that I'm going to tell him that, of course.

The maître d' follows my line of sight, his sleek, pale blue skin pulling into a smile as he makes the connection, and he escorts me to the table and seats me.

"Hi," Link says once I've settled, and I resist the urge to laugh aloud nervously. I'd forgotten how much I like the sound of his voice.

"Hi," I respond, giving him as confident and dazzling a smile as I can muster instead.

"So, this was probably a stupid thing to do since I wasn't entirely sure you were going to show up and I don't know your preferences at all," he mutters, leaning forward slightly so I can hear better, "but I already ordered for you."

Another nervous chuckle bubbles to my lips and I can't keep it from spilling out. He laughs a little, too, sitting back as a trio of servers appear out of nowhere and start filling the table with small plates. The tantalizing scents of lemongrass and ginger, basil, fragrant fleet-lotus, cilantro, lime, chilies, and sweet papaya waft everywhere, and the presentation is stunning.

Link calls one of the servers back as I'm admiring the spread, and he saunters over with a knowing smirk. Link takes one of the plates—it's a delicate white fish on a bed of vibrant pink and blue seagrass—and hands it back to him, arching a cynical brow. "You're killing me, Mikau."

"You're serious about this one," he murmurs, taking it from him, and Link sighs.

"It's _wilting_. It should be _glowing_."

"It's a dead fish," he protests, but then he snickers at Link's irritated expression and assures him, "I'll have them redo it."

"Thank you," he mutters, rolling his eyes, but then he looks at me and hesitates, his expression turning tentative. "Sorry, are you mortified?"

I realize my mouth is slightly agape and click it shut. "No," I assure him quickly, but he doesn't seem entirely convinced.

"I just don't want you to think I'm a condescending snob," he says, one corner of his mouth tugging down in worry, and all at once his face goes from ruggedly handsome to adorable. "It's not like that. I can get away with it because I know all these guys. I work here."

"Oh," I smile, and he starts rearranging the plates.

He lines three of them in front of me, his eyes alight with anticipation. "Start with these."

I twiddle my fork, slowly composing a bite. "What do you do?" I ask casually.

He leans back into his chair, wearing a mischievous grin. "Garbage boy."

I take the first bite, and my eyes reflexively close. The flavors dance in my mouth and the sensation of the pleasant textures turn my thoughts into a blurry haze until I have absolutely no idea how long I've been savoring them, but the self-satisfied expression on Link's face when I finally get around to opening my eyes again tells me it's been a while.

"Wow," I finally manage.

"I'm glad," he says, leaning his elbows on the table and gesturing with his eyes to the next plate.

I laugh again. "Are you just going to watch me eat all night?"

"No, I'll eat," he promises. "I just want to see what you think of these first."

I humor him, though I suppose it doesn't take much convincing. My reaction to the next two plates is much like the first, though these flavors are completely different. The first was sweet and buttery; the second was aromatic and nutty; the third was spicy and sour. It takes me a while to recover from the culinary bliss, but eventually I remember he's still sitting there waiting for my appraisal. I curl a finger over my lip while I think, returning his stare.

"Divine," I finally tell him.

"Which one?"

"All of them."

"But which one do you like the best?" he insists. "You can tell a lot about a person by their favorite dish."

"No you can't," I scoff, but then tell him anyway, "The second one."

He smiles but doesn't say anything, reaching across the table with his fork and taking a bite of it. He doesn't have a gushy reaction; in fact, he eats it rather sacrilegiously. But then he swallows and nods, and murmurs, "It is good."

He's watching me intently with those tempestuous, calculating blue eyes, and I can't figure out why. I can feel heat rising into my face, and I scramble to get ahold of the situation and myself before my cardiovascular system can completely embarrass me.

"I don't know anything about you other than your name and the fact that you don't have your PhD," I start coolly, taking a forkful from one of the other plates. I try it and sigh involuntarily. That one's good too. And now he has that stupid self-satisfied smirk on his face again and my cheeks are starting to burn.

"And that I make an excellent last-minute-decoy-boyfriend," he adds.

"Surely there has to be more to you than that," I murmur, acting as disinterested in him as I can while I reach for another plate.

He shrugs as he takes another bite. Even his self-effacing face makes my pulse race. Goddesses, I am so predictable sometimes. "I like food," he begins. "A lot. I play piano sometimes. I drive an obnoxiously orange car."

"Not at all as you appear on the surface," I prod him sarcastically, and he chuckles.

"All right. What do you want to know?"

Waiters arrive before I can respond, taking away the two plates we've finished and replacing them with a small clay pot, the contents still bubbling furiously and smelling of savory fish and sweet honey.

I really don't know what to ask. Usually I would make sure we can tick off all the right checkboxes: Who are your parents? What are you majoring in? Shall we trade income figures, our last tax return, and graphs and spreadsheets outlining our plans for the next five to ten years to see if we're compatible in the long-term? But not with Link. He's unpredictable and impetuous, and I like that about him. It gives me leave to enjoy him and enjoy the moment without overanalyzing every square inch of the foreseeable future. That approach would be a pointless exercise anyway, since I doubt we have anything in common other than an inexplicable attraction to each other that might bode well for a promising relationship. But throwing it out the window does put me at a disadvantage, since I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'd like to put him on the back foot for a change.

"Tell me something you learned about yourself in the last week," I counter, hoping that such an unusual question will throw him off kilter. It doesn't.

"I found out I'm a sucker for blondes."

"You're unbelievable," I laugh breathlessly, refusing to meet his eyes as I feel my cheeks finally flush a brilliant pink, stabbing my fork into the clay pot.

" _I'm_ unbelievable?" he gawks. "You were the one being a massive flirt the last time we met."

"That was different," I object, stuffing the forkful into my mouth and managing to huff exasperatedly instead of moan aloud as the flavor hits me. "That wasn't real! I was being ridiculous!"

"All right, all right," he placates me, finishing off another plate. "How about this: I found out that I was happy being miserable. But I've finally snapped out of it."

Mikau comes back again, bearing the dish that Link had declared wilting earlier, and trades it for the plate he's just finished, pointedly walking away without another word. Link isn't perturbed in the slightest.

I watch him a moment, absorbing his sincerity. His eyes are glimmering, casting the reflective light from the water back at me. I play with my food a little before I ask, "What do you mean?"

"It's kind of weird that I didn't notice before," he muses. "I had what I thought I wanted: the upscale apartment in my favorite building in the city, unaccountably successful career path—"

"Garbage boy," I echo.

"Right," he smirks, picking up his glass and taking a drink. "But when you dedicate yourself to something like that, it's easy to get unbalanced. I was neglecting areas of my life that I knew were important but I thought I could get on without. I wasn't happy, and I knew it, but I didn't know what I needed to change. Or maybe I just didn't want to."

"That's deep," I concede slowly, raising my eyebrows. "What made you change your mind?"

He swirls the drink in his hand absently, dithering for a moment, but then his grin widens and his eyes find mine, and he confides, "You did."

I plant my elbow on the table and rest my temple against my fingers, watching him resignedly. He says it with such ridiculous genuineness, I'm intrigued and disarmed rather than flustered. He's honest, and he's real, and I'm having more fun with him than I can recall having in years.

And I like what he brings out in me, because I _feel_ more real.

"Sounds like you just needed a good kiss," I finally decide.

"Yeah," he smiles. "I think I did."

We eat in silence for a minute, and while I can only guess what's going on in his head, I know my thoughts are racing everywhere. I'm desperate to pick up the dialogue again—I'm already starting to overanalyze everything as though this might actually go somewhere in typical Zelda fashion: wondering how he feels about traditional gender roles in the home and if he plans on settling in the suburbs and if he wants kids and how many and are his parents in the city? Because my parents know everyone and if my parents don't like his parents that could complicate things and I don't know why social circles are so important anyway, I haven't had time for a cocktail party in ages and I never even enjoy them because they're always full of politicking and networking and why isn't Link saying anything?!—so I insist with as convincing a smile as I can marshal, "Tell me what you learned about me from my favorite dish."

"Nothing I didn't already suspect," he assures me. But while his words send an unusual tremor up my spine I'm not about to back down, and I tilt my head gently so he knows I'm waiting for more. "A lot of people would pick the first one," he explains. "It's straight forward—fatty and sugary and hard not to like. The third one is appealing too because it's loud and in your face and exciting. But the one you picked is more subtle. It's complicated. The flavors are layered very deliberately, and the fragrance is a big factor in the experience. It's all a little too nuanced for some people."

"So I'm not exciting or hard not to like," I conclude, bemused. "I'm too nuanced."

He barks a laugh. "No. You are… definitely exciting," he clarifies slowly, watching me with piercing eyes, "and you are uncommonly easy to like. And if you're too nuanced for some people, I think that's their problem."

My heart sputters, and I can't stop the smile that spreads across my face as I avert my gaze. I recover myself as quickly as I can, "What does it mean then?"

"That you're perceptive. And adventurous."

"Not as adventurous as I'd like," I confide. "But I'm working on it."

He smiles, turning his attention back to the meal. One by one, we're emptying the plates, and the attentive staff are quick to take them away.

"I have two favorite desserts here and I couldn't decide which one you'd like more, so I got both," he remarks casually as we tear into the last entrée, and just as I'm about to complain that I'm too full—because I always am—I realize that the courses were balanced just right so that I actually could sample a dessert or two.

"I don't think you're really a garbage boy," I accuse him suspiciously.

He smirks. "Why not?"

"You know too much about food. Like, more than anyone else I know," I muse. "And you're particular about it too."

"What, garbage boys can't have standards?"

I narrow my eyes. "Do you really want to start us off with a lie?"

He scoffs. "You're one to talk."

"Goddesses above," I complain. "How long are you going to dangle that over my head?"

"Well, you did say we're even after tonight," he explains, and I feel my heartrate climbing again. "I've got to get in as many jabs as I can, since I might never see you again."

I refuse to take the bait, bringing my glass to my mouth so he can't see me biting my lip. "I suppose that's fair."

The waiter Mikau appears again, laying two immaculate plates on the table and announcing them with minimal flourish.

"Mighty bananas flambé in coconut milk with rock salt black sticky rice, and champagne-soaked strawberries with Goron spice chocolate drizzle atop beurre noisette cakes." He turned to Link expectantly. "All adequately glowing, I assume?"

Link's eyes didn't leave mine as a smirk crossed his lips. "Go away."

The Zora complied and I bite back a laugh, turning my attention to the desserts on the table.

I don't wait for him to insist I go first. Every bite is a roller coaster of visceral reactions and flavors and textures that challenge all my preconceived notions about food and its rightful place in the universe. By the end of it I can't help but sigh and fall back into my chair, teetering somewhere between the verge of tears and needing a nap.

"This has been the most emotionally exhausting meal I've ever eaten," I tell him humorlessly.

His mouth tugs into a worried half smile. "I'm glad you liked it… I think?"

"It was delicious," I admit. Like he wasn't already well aware. "It went by quickly though. I thought you would've tried to drag it out for as long as possible, since you may never see me again and all."

"I shouldn't have ordered ahead of time," he agrees, grimacing a little. "That was dumb."

"Well," I decide with a sigh, "now we're even."

"Almost," he corrects me, gesturing the maître d' over.

"Almost?"

He doesn't answer me, turning his attention to the smartly dressed Zora approaching at an unhurried pace, and alarm bells go off in my head at once.

"Bring us a few scales, please, Evan," he says as he stands. "I'm going to give her a tour."

"Very good, sir," the Zora replies, leaving me alone with Link's schemes.

I stand to join him, not trusting the excited sparkle in his eyes one bit. He takes us to one of the pools nearby, where Evan meets us, handing him a box of genuine golden and silver Zora scales strung together on thin chains. He flicks one of the strands across his shoulder like it's nothing, and walks behind me to fasten another around my neck. I can feel the scales sealing against the skin over my collarbone, their natural adhesive activated by my body heat.

"Take off your shoes," he instructs, unbuttoning his collar so his necklace can drop under his dress shirt and fastening it around his neck.

"This is crazy," I mutter, slipping off my heels anyway even though I already know where this is going.

He steps into the pool and starts descending the stairs, turning and offering me his hand when I don't immediately follow. I sigh as I take it, scowling so he knows I don't approve of the ambush, and let him lead me into the water. It's pleasantly tepid, almost precisely body temperature. My dress clings to me, and I'm glad I wore something lightweight and opaque.

We both dive in headlong once we're chest deep, and I remind myself to breathe normally. The submerged lights in the floor shimmer against the translucent blue stone, but I have to force myself to move on since Link isn't stopping to admire the spectacle. He weaves through the smooth corridors until we arrive at the other end of the restaurant, in the aquarium dining room. Moonlight is streaming in through the glass domes in the elevated ceiling, bathing the Zora diners in an ethereal glow, and waterfalls spilling from the arches are refreshing the water, making turbulence on the aquarium's surface.

Everything in the aquarium moves with the currents: the seagrass, the shoals of fish, the cloth of the Zoras' elegant clothes and their curved silver jewelry, even our hair. On the other side of the glass wall separating us, the Hylian diners in the opposite room seem unreal, cast in rippling light and looking unnaturally still by comparison. And of course the meals are different, with everything served in the aquarium side belonging to the traditional "sunken" style that few Hylians are daring enough to try, all prepared without sauces or fire.

"It looks better from above," Link murmurs in my ear, his voice muffled by the water.

He offers me his hand and takes me inward and upward, through the dancing pink and blue seagrass centerpiece weaving back and forth around the massive center spire. None of them seem to notice as we swim above their heads, floating about ten feet up. The light pouring in from all sides ignites the room in colors that the two fathoms or so of water between us would normally shield from Hylian eyes, and when I glance at Link, drifting in the current beneath me, the light and colors are reflecting across his face. But he's not looking at the water and the seabed in the light.

He's staring at me.

I swim a little closer, and when I stop my hair splays everywhere. I take a breath to speak, and though it feels a little strange it really isn't any more difficult than speaking into the air.

"Enjoying the view?" I chide him, but as usual he's incorrigible.

"You look amazing," he tells me sincerely, and butterflies flutter in my stomach. I try my best to act insouciant.

"Thanks for noticing."

"Oh, I definitely noticed," he assures me. "I just didn't have the nerve to say so earlier."

"Goddesses," I laugh, pivoting onto my back and giving a gentle kick so I'm gliding away, too embarrassed to maintain eye contact but too proud to not at least attempt to camouflage it as flippancy. "You are a piece of work."

He grabs my ankle before I can get too far and I suppress a squeal of surprise, and he gently tugs me back. He lets go immediately, but my trajectory is already set in motion and I don't fight it, letting it run its course until I end up upright and inches away from him.

His eyes flick to my mouth and my heart stops.

"I want to see you again," he murmurs, his eyes burning.

Suddenly I can't breathe, and I'm not sure if I should panic or not because I don't know if it's because of him or because the scales aren't working.

"I'm moody," I warn him very quietly. "And I have a prohibitively busy schedule. And an embarrassing number of deeply ingrained control issues."

He nods, drifting closer, and I swallow reflexively. "I can work with that."

"Ok," I whisper.

His lips touch mine, and at once I have the oddest sensation of going weightless while actually being weightless, floating and disconnected from the world physically as much as I am mentally. His fingers slide up my neck and tangle in my hair, and his other hand snakes around my waist, holding me close as we drift in the glittering void between the surface and the seabed. The kiss is slow and gentle, but insistent, and my head is spinning as I let my hands wander up his arms around wrap around his neck. It's nothing like the fiery, spontaneous rush of our first kiss. It's a thousand times better.

I don't know how long we were floating, tangled in each other and blocking out the rest of the world, but in hindsight I can say it was definitely not long enough.


	3. Not My First Guest

This isn't the first time I'm having a girl over to my place for dinner, but it's the first time it's a girl that I can't stop thinking about, that I lay awake remembering at night and that distracts me so thoroughly from my work that I stop caring about it; the first girl I really wish I could've brought to meet my parents; the first girl I've invited home since I opened the _Domain._

Just getting her to come was more effort than I'd bargained for. She wasn't kidding when she said she had control issues; she wants everything planned out and all the information up front, so my ploy of slipping her information on an as needed basis as a tactic to keep in more regular contact, while effective, definitely had her squirming on the edge of her comfort zone. When I told her I lived in the West Necluda Building, her immediate response was to ask for my apartment number. I didn't give it to her, of course. It started out as a game, but it's escalated to the point where I can't tell her now as a matter of principle. We're both way too competitive. And even if she does it kicking and screaming, the fact that I can get her here without telling her means that she's interested enough to put up with it, and I'm pretty pleased about that.

My phone vibrates on the counter and I snap off the blowtorch to check the message.

_Getting in the elevator._

I can see her crossing her arms already.

_Top floor._

I don't know why I bothered putting my phone down. Her response, which I should've predicted, is immediate.

_Apartment number?_

_Why are you so obsessed with that? It's like you're stalking me._

I smirk to myself as I go back to putting the finishing touches on the meal. I left the door open and there's literally nowhere else to go once she steps off the elevator, which I'm sure she wasn't counting on, so the game was basically rigged in my favor from the beginning. I'll put her out of her misery after she gets here.

Less than a minute later I hear the door close and her heeled shoes evenly rapping down the hall. She rounds the corner into the kitchen, and her arms are folded exactly as I'd imagined.

"The penthouse," she accedes quietly, her expression disapproving. "Clever."

"Hi," I greet her as charmingly as I can. She's not so generous as to give me a smile, but something in her expression softens, and my pulse thrums contentedly.

But then she looks me over, and suddenly her eyes narrow. "What are you doing?"

Her voice is so accusatory I actually second guess myself. "Making dessert?"

"Are you _blowtorching_ crème brûlée?"

I try to stifle a grin. Gods, she's gorgeous when she's irritated with me. "Is that a problem?"

"Garbage boy my eye," she mutters, pacing across the kitchen into the rest of the apartment.

The kitchen is state-of-the-art, of course, and sits on a platform along the back wall, across from the wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. Submerged a few steps beneath that is the living area, with my baby grand on the left wall, and the sofa and coffee table facing the TV on the right.

"Nice view," she says, standing on the lip of the stairs as she absorbs the cityscape.

It really is. It's a spectacularly panoramic backdrop when I'm working in the kitchen, so, predictably, it's my favorite feature of the penthouse. But it's much better with her standing in the foreground. I could watch her watching it all night. I shut off the blowtorch before I burn something important; the sugar is looking pretty golden anyway.

"5201," I finally tell her, and she flashes me a grin.

"Was that so hard?" She turns again and descends the elongated steps, crossing to the window. "So, this is your favorite building in the city, then? What do you love about it?"

"I like the architecture," I shrug, cleaning up my workspace. "The asymmetry, the silver in the framework. It's intriguing without being unnecessarily complicated."

Sort of like what she's wearing, actually: a deep gray and blue striped V-neck sweater that accentuates her in all the right places and dark wash jeans. Simple and effortless, and frustratingly attractive. I try to focus on putting the utensils away, but suddenly I can't remember where the blowtorch goes.

"I need a drink," I mutter, crossing to the cooler. "Wine?"

"Sure," she answers, wandering over to the piano. I uncork a bottle of Bloodleaf from the Akkala Valley and take her a glass, and she watches me calculatingly while she takes a sip.

I smirk slowly, watching her watch me. "What?"

"I'm still trying to figure you out."

I flash her a smile and head back up the stairs. "Ask me anything."

She follows me cautiously, leaning her elbows on the island while I pull the dinner plates out of the convection oven. "Is _Zora's Domain_ yours?"

"Yep," I answer, putting the plates on either side of the centerpiece on the small, counter height table just off the kitchen tiles. I go back for the rest of the settings while she conjures another.

"Did you grow up around here?"

"Uh huh," I say, placing the amuse bouche and the tiny composed salad.

"What about your family?" she asks as I take the dessert to the table. "Are your parents in the city?"

I preemptively give her a warm smile; I know she's going to be mortified in about two seconds. "My parents died in a car accident twelve years ago."

She blanches. "Gods, Link, I'm so sorry."

"It was a shock to everyone," I admit, pulling her chair out. I can tell she's berating herself, so I keep going; it usually puts people at ease when they see I'm willing to talk about it. "They were great. I was only 16. A lot of people were worried I'd spiral out of control without them around to keep me in check."

She smiles gently. "You seem to be doing all right for yourself."

"It was all them," I confide with a smile, taking the seat across from her. "Their will was very specific. They set aside how much they thought I'd need to live comfortably for a few years, but they wanted me to put myself through culinary school. They knew how much I wanted to go. And they believed in me. They told me to put the rest into doing what I loved. So I built the _Domain_. I sunk everything into it; I would've been penniless if it hadn't worked out. But I knew they wanted me to at least get the chance to try, you know? I didn't want to play it safe and take that away from them. So, as you can imagine, the _Domain_ is more than just a business venture to me."

"I'm getting that," she nods, and the glimmer in her eyes reminds me the way she looked at me after I kissed her in the aquarium.

I laugh a little at myself, feeling like I've gotten carried away. But I can't seem to stop it from spilling out of me. "I was obsessed with it for a while. Friends would try to keep up with me, keep me balanced, but I was too stressed out and busy to reciprocate. I haven't had anything even resembling a social life for the last couple years. And I thought I was fine with that. But meaningful interaction with other human beings is kind of a key ingredient for happiness, apparently."

"That's something I'm still trying to figure out," she admits, cutting into her roasted vegetables.

"Tell me," I pry, hoping she won't mind if I flip the tables on her.

"I feel like I'm doing the same thing, but for much less noble reasons." She wrinkles her nose again. It's like it's a preprogrammed reaction to talking about her career path. "I do like Archaeotechnology. It's interesting, and I don't think I'll ever get bored of it. But it isn't a dream of mine or anything. My parents are academically oriented and insisted I get the best education I can—they're both Lanayru alumni, and as far as they were concerned it wasn't so much a question of whether or not I enrolled there as it was a question of what I'd pursue once I did. Recently they've gotten on this kick where they want me to meet someone respectable—translated also a well-performing Lanayru student—but those haven't really been relationships as much as they've been frustrating exercises in finding compatible candidates based on statistical probability."

"Hence the spoiled ex," I recall mildly, unreasonably jealous, and she nods once.

"Other than that, I've been spending all my energy on coursework, and I've kind of alienated myself in the process." She pauses, grimacing. "Sorry. I must sound like such a whiner. My parents might be demanding, but at least I still have them."

"That's not fair," I disagree. "Everybody's got problems."

It's not the most eloquent thing I've ever said, but she seems happy with it.

"Thanks," she smirks. I still haven't touched my food, and I wouldn't have noticed except her eyes flick to my untouched plate. She swallows. "Something wrong?"

"No," I answer reflexively, and then backpedal a little, trying to sound more convincing. "I just don't have a huge appetite all the sudden."

She sighs at herself, putting her fork down with a clatter. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have asked. I'm so sorry, Link, I didn't—"

"No, Zelda, that's not it," I interrupt as earnestly as I can, blathering on too quickly. "I was just thinking, before you got here, about different things, about how I—"

—can't stop thinking about you, how you're the first girl since this whole thing happened that can make me smile, how happy I am to have you and how nervous it makes me to think that it's so early on and I could so easily ruin everything—

"—you know what, forget it," I shut myself down, reaching for a spoon and my dessert and leaning back with it in my chair. Her eyes are miserable and I'm teetering dangerously close to saying something that's going to make one or both of us extremely uncomfortable, and the only real solution here is crème brûlée. "This is all I feel like eating right now."

Her eyes widen. "Are you serious?"

I break the perfect shell without hesitating, dip in, and then shamelessly drag the custard off my spoon. "Yep."

She looks over the table, flustered. "But you went to all this trouble—"

"I cook like this all the time," I wave her off, shoveling in another mouthful.

She hesitates, thinking. "Dessert first, huh?"

"Take a chance," I encourage her. "Be a rebel."

But she's still torn. "I don't have a ton of experience in that department."

"Lesson one," I say with a straight face as I stand, cross to her side of the table, and hand her her spoon. "Eat dessert first."

She smiles a slow, mischievous smile as she takes it, and suddenly I want to pin her against the refrigerator. Instead I wander down the steps and lean against the back of the couch, staring at the lights speckling the city. It's starting to rain, and the soft patter on the glass matches my change in mood; we've definitely crossed over from the charming and elaborate impression I'd planned on into cozy and comforting. She's sitting sideways in her chair, legs crossed, savoring her first bite.

"Want to watch a movie?" I suggest randomly, and she nods with a happy sound of affirmation, mouth too full to respond properly, and hops off the chair. She plops on the couch and turns the TV on while I go back to retrieve our wineglasses, and I flip off the lights so the room is bathed in the glow of the screen.

"I want to binge-watch something," she announces as I'm on my way back. "I tried it once when I had the flu last semester, and it was _very_ satisfying."

"You tried it _once_?" I repeat incredulously, setting our glasses on the table. I pull a blanket out of the storage ottoman and drop it on her, still floored. "You need to come over more."

I know I would like it if she did. Her lips twitch up gently, and I wonder if she's thinking the same thing. She's scrolling through the options on my streaming service, the images of each title splashing light and color over her face, and suddenly I can't take my eyes off her.

She picks a popular serial, which, coincidentally, I haven't seen either. Not that I care what we watch, so long as I get to be near her. She puts the remote back on the coffee table and slides over to lean up against me, positioning herself so my arm naturally falls across her shoulders, and drapes the blanket over us both. I'm glad; it saves me the trouble of having to gradually sneak my way over like a fidgety teenager.

The show is good. She pauses it part way through to argue one of the philosophical quandaries with me when I don't express the conviction she does, and the plot is engrossing enough that we're both excited to move on to the next episode as the credits are rolling.

Two episodes in, I grab our dinner plates off the table so we can pick at them while we watch, and the leads who hate each other so much are still in denial over their mutual attraction; an episode after that, we've finished off the Bloodleaf and her head is resting on my shoulder; and somewhere in the midst of the fifth episode, I fall asleep.

Several hours later, I wake up to a rumble of thunder and Zelda shifting in my arms. She presses her face into my throat, taking a halting breath as we get our bearings in unison. The TV shut itself off at some point and the downpour outside is obscuring the light from the city, leaving us almost completely in the dark.

"What time is it?" she asks blearily, and I blindly reach for my phone. When I click it on, we both squint unhappily at the light. I squint a little harder, and manage to make out some numbers.

"3:30 in the morning," I mumble, shutting off the screen and dropping my phone onto the floor disgustedly.

She growls as she sits up, dropping her face in her hands and clumsily rubbing her eyes. "I have to go."

"Just stay the night. It's pouring out there."

She sighs, torn between her exhaustion and her practicality. "No. I have class tomorrow, and you'd have to make up the couch—"

"I'm not making up the couch at 3 AM," I object crabbily. "We can both sleep in my room."

"What?!" she snaps, alarmed but still too groggy to look properly affronted. "No!"

"I'm talking about actual sleeping, Zelda," I sigh exasperatedly, too tired to find much humor in the situation. "It's pouring rain, and it's late, and by the time you got home and actually got ready for bed you'd be wired and barely have time to get any sleep anyway. Just stay."

"But I don't have my toothbrush, or a change of clothes, or a hairbrush—"

"I don't need a list of reasons," I interrupt hotly, overtired and grumpy that she doesn't want to stay with me. "Just make up your mind. Yes or no."

She folds her arms, still squinty-eyed, and huffs. She makes me wait a while, and I'm about to just get up and drag myself into the bedroom without waiting for an answer when she finally mumbles, "Fine."

I manage a noise of acknowledgement as I get off the sofa, retrieve my phone off the floor, and lead her to the bedroom, which is just off the TV area. I leave the mess on the coffee table for the morning.

She rakes her fingers through her hair as she gravitates towards the bed and peels back the covers. I stuff my phone under my pillow, hoping my alarm won't wake her in the morning, and climb in beside her. The sheets are still cold; I pointedly ignore the space she's put between us, grabbing her by whatever I can find and pulling her closer.

"Hey!" she complains, but I know there's no way she wouldn't rather have me for warmth, too.

"Shut up and go to sleep," I murmur into her hair, and after a moment she tangles her fingers in mine.

Not long after that I drift back to sleep, lulled by the sound of her breathing and the rhythmic drumming of the rainstorm.

My alarm goes off at 5 o' clock, and as soon as I'm cognizant I shut it off, hoping not to bother her. There's a huge corporate event at the _Domain_ today, and since I wasn't there to oversee everything last night there's probably a laundry list of things that didn't get done; I can't afford to sleep in with her like I want.

I manage to carefully get out of bed, shower, and dress without waking her. The sunrise is just starting to paint the room as I'm ready to leave. I quickly clean up the mess from the night before and turn on the coffee machine for her, and then venture back into the bedroom to grab my phone. I catch myself staring at her in the pale light; her hair is tangled and splayed across my pillow, her expression unguarded, and my pulse throbs when I think back to how perfectly she fit in my arms last night. I push my luck and lean down to steal a kiss before I go. Her lips are unbelievably full and soft, and she stirs under my touch, trying to lean into it. I pull away before I can wake her, and she settles again with a sigh.

I turn again in the doorway for one last glance as I go, watching her sleeping form nestled in my bed, and I think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"Gods, Zelda," I mutter, raking a hand through my hair as I turn to leave. "I'm falling for you."


	4. Not My First Social Function

This isn't my first invitation to a straitlaced, convoluted social function meant to celebrate some academic circle or other, but it's the first time I've been talked into going for the sole purpose of messing with everyone there.

Initially I was going to go because my parents were supposed to be there, but when they informed me that they were going to be unavoidably detained I called Link in a hurry to tell him I had a free evening. But he took the opportunity to encourage me to go anyway, putting his own juvenile spin on the occasion.

"This is such a stupid idea," I breathe as we pull up to the university gala hall. It's draped in royal blue banners in honor of the guests majoring in the sciences.

"This is a _great_ idea," he disagrees, stepping out of the car and tossing his keys to the valet.

He comes around and opens my door for me, and we're already drawing attention. I don't know what I expected; we're in a burnt orange mustang with white racing stripes, which is apparently named Epona and is the other woman in his life with whom I'll be vying for his attention.

I take a steadying breath as I step out. I'm wearing a few diamonds and a strapless black mermaid gown that fits me like a glove, but despite the elegant camouflage I'm not looking forward to mingling with my peers at all. The prestige of the institution—and the expense involved in getting here—generally makes everyone twofaced and needlessly competitive, and after a few weeks of Link's decidedly transparent company, I'm dreading all the passive aggression.

He looks me over as he helps me out of the car; he didn't really get the chance to see me when he picked me up this evening. When his eyes come back up to mine, they're smoldering, and the hunger in them leaves me incredibly warm. I can't help the flush that spreads over my cheeks.

"Shall we?" I divert breathlessly.

He puts his arm around my waist without answering and leads me up the stairs, and though it could by my imagination it feels as though his hand is hovering lower on my back than usual.

The hall is awash in crystals, soft mood lighting, and piano music, and the murmur of indistinct conversation hums pleasantly amidst the tinkling of champagne glasses and occasional glint of polite laughter. It's all so familiar, so glamorous.

So dull.

I sigh subconsciously and I feel Link gently squeeze my waist.

"Come on," he murmurs in my ear, and I can hear the smile on his voice. "We're here to have fun. Introduce me to your friends."

"I don't have any friends."

He chuckles low in his throat, and my pulse thrums excitedly. Maybe it won't be so bad.

"Your classmates, then."

I scan the room imperceptibly as we move through the crowd, stifling a frown as I register how many of them I've sat across from on unsuccessful dates. Before I can dwell on it too long, I hear my name behind me and slowly turn to acknowledge it.

"Zelda, darling," she says again, closing the distance between us. It's Ruto, a Zora woman in my Experimental Plasma Physics course who's as vain as she is brilliant, and she's got someone from the biochemistry department tethered by the arm. "So glad you could join us for our little soirée."

"Ruto," I greet her, leaning in mechanically to kiss her on both cheeks. A waiter interrupts us briefly to give Link and me champagne glasses, and then I use it to gesture at him. "This is Link."

"A pleasure," she purrs, letting her eyes wonder over him and extending her hand. I plaster an insincere smile on my face, but a vengeful voice in my head is growling possessively at her shameless flirting. It surprises me, actually. I mean, he's not really _mine_ , is he? He takes her hand dutifully, bringing it to his mouth and miming kissing the air above it. Her eyes are still glued to him while she goes on. "You remember Professor Bandam, of course."

As dull and witless as he is handsome and egocentric. One of the few men here I didn't bother assessing as a possible candidate. "Of course. So good to see you again, Professor."

"I'm sure I would've remembered seeing you around," Ruto immediately jumps right back in. "Wherever did our little Zelda find you?"

I had just taken a sip of champagne, so Link plows ahead without me. I try not to look mortified. "I hired her as a consultant on one of my company's latest projects. We're looking into miniaturized Ancient Furnace tech to replace bomb-powered space flight."

I almost choke on my drink. I knew he was going to lie, but I didn't know he was going to pick a rouse surrounding the _very thing we spent years studying here!_ My heartrate jumps as I realize the odds of her seeing right through him have just gone up significantly. Although, technically, the premise of his imaginary project is feasible.

"Oh?" she replies, fluttering her eyes a bit. "How ambitious. How did you manage to compensate for the intense heat?"

"Sustaining a cold fusion reaction isn't as prohibitively expensive as people claim," he says, giving me a subtle wink. "But our methods are proprietary. I'm sure you understand. Besides, you don't want to bore the Professor."

Ruto blinks. "What did you say your name was, again?"

"Arnold," he answers with a smile, and I nearly laugh aloud. "Pleasure to meet you both."

We beat a hasty retreat, Link snatching a razorclaw crab puff off an hors d'oeuvres tray as we make for the other end of the hall.

"What in the world was that?" I hiss under my breath, an excited smile dancing on my features as we put some distance between us and our first victims.

"Crab puff," he says. "Surprisingly not bad, either."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"Just because I went to culinary arts school doesn't mean I can't read," he scoffs. "I wasn't about to come to your university gala without skimming a few relevant journals."

"You are _so_ —"

"I know, I know, unbelievable," he mutters. I guess I have used that particular adjective to describe him a few times. "Just admit that you're pleased."

Something warm and feral stirs in my stomach as I consider his request. I'm suddenly feeling much more than pleased. He's as adventurous and electrifying as ever, but there's a confidence radiating off him in waves that's stealing the breath right out of my chest. He's sharing champagne and making small talk with some of the most educated minds in Hyrule, and with just a little forethought he's managed to poise himself to outmaneuver them all. He isn't just reckless—though he is reckless, and against my better judgement I find that immodestly attractive—he's smart, and he's daring, and he's gone to the trouble of arming himself for this evening just for me.

The only thing keep me from giggling over him is my own stubbornness.

I arch an eyebrow at him as I go to take another sip of champagne. "I am pleased."

"Good," he murmurs, leaning closer, and his proximity is making me dizzy. "Now try to relax. You were so tense back there I thought you were going to snap and fly across the room."

Oh, there's definitely some tension. That feral something waking in me is coiling to pounce on him like a lizalfos on a highland sheep.

"Zelda! There you are," another voice interrupts my reverie. This time it's Revali, a Rito majoring in aeronautic sciences that I haven't shared classes with in three years, but who still insists on bothering me whenever he can because apparently we're 'birds of a feather.' We aren't. "When I heard your parents weren't attending I thought we might miss out on the pleasure of your company."

"Yes, they asked me to convey their apologies," I drone. "But I've brought along someone else. Revali, this is Ferdinand."

Link pinches me through my dress, but I don't flinch.

"Hello," Link says, crossing his wrist with Revali's in the common Rito greeting. It's hard to shake a hand made of feathers. "Are you majoring in Archaeotech as well?"

"Heavens, no," the Rito laughs. "My specialty is theoretical aeronautics. I'm in the process of perfecting new lift generating techniques that will revolutionize the science as we know it, even among the Rito. But Zelda and I go way back. We've been at this university together for years. I can't say I recall seeing your face around, though. How did you two meet?"

Once again, my mouth is full of champagne. The constant sipping must be a nervous twitch.

"We met on a Molduga hunting expedition in the Gerudo region," he says happily, and I stifle an irritated sigh.

"Oh my," Revali's eyes widen in alarm. He recovers himself with a chuckle. "How barbaric."

"Well it's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure," Link concedes, his eyes sparkling with laughter. "But when I saw Zelda sharpshooting that thing with bomb arrows at 100 yards, I just knew I had to find out who she was."

"Well," Revali breathes, at a loss. "Doesn't that just sound terribly exciting?"

"It's been fun catching up, Revali," I smile as I turn to drag Link away. "See you around."

He tries to sputter something else, but I've turned my back on him before he gets the chance, heading to another corner of the room with Link in tow. We're quickly running out of places to hide.

"I don't like him," Link decides as we weave through the crowd.

"Why not?" I smirk coolly. "Because he's better looking than you are?"

"I think we can definitely rule that out." I slow down in a more quiet section of the room and he steps in closer behind me, his breath feathering my ear. "And we need to lay some ground rules. _Ferdinand_? Really?"

The tension Revali momentarily distracted me from is back in a flash, stoked back to life by his nearness, and I spin in his arms. But he doesn't recoil from the sudden movement, and our faces are tantalizingly close, his amused eyes burning into mine.

"I thought the idea was to make up ridiculous stories about _you_ ," I retort, admiring the blur of sparkling crystals reflecting in his gaze even as the world around me begins to tilt. "Now I'm a big game enthusiast."

"And an expert marksman licensed to use heavy ordnance."

I huff condescendingly, trying to maintain an aura of dignity. "Sometimes you drive me crazy."

"Am I driving you crazy?" he asks, his voice dropping to a sultry murmur. He's leaning in closer, and my breath turns shallow as I fixate on his mouth, slowly and invitingly drifting nearer to mine. My pulse races with anticipation and every nerve is alive, poised to burst into flames at his faintest touch. But then he steps past me without making contact and takes a sip of champagne. "Imagine that."

I blink, processing. Then my cheeks flush what I'm sure is a brilliant pink.

"You are the most _unchivalrous_ , _infuriating_ —"

"But you like me," he interrupts, a smile on his lips that could melt red ice.

I refuse to give him the satisfaction. "Not tonight I don't."

"That's too bad," he sighs quietly, fingering his champagne flute. "I like you quite a bit."

And he turns those burning eyes on me again, wreaking unaccountable havoc on my cardiopulmonary system.

I turn around before I can really humiliate myself, scanning the room for another victim. I know the only way I'm going to get myself out of his crosshairs is by giving him another target. A mischievous voice pipes up that maybe I don't want to get out of them, but I tell it to shut up and let me think.

My eyes settle on a mark who is at once too perfect and too horrifying to contemplate: the unmistakable figure of the man with the chocolate hair who was the reason Link and I met in the first place.

My ex, Shad.

But no. It's too ridiculous. Too risky.

Too _tempting_ , you mean.

 _Shut up_ , voice, no!

But it's too late; she's taken over my mouth, turning it up into a smile, and I turn it on Link without thinking, letting her have control. I don't know where she's coming from, but she's feisty. And I sort of like the way it feels when she's in my head. "Ready to bring your A game?"

He seems to like it too. His answering smile is subdued but gorgeous. "Born ready."

I take his arm and set our trajectory and velocity, and he takes it from there. "Shad is the infamous ex from the night we met. The historical linguistics and archaeology major. Brown hair, glasses. Leather phone case with the dagger sticking out of it."

"Guess the redhead didn't work out," he smirks. I hadn't noticed, but he's right. He's with a different woman tonight.

"So how are we going to do this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I can't just walk up to him and introduce you," I roll my eyes a little. "How desperate would that look?"

"Pretty desperate," he agrees with a wry smirk, stopping his approach and smoothly maneuvering me so I'm facing him. "I hope you're not too invested in his opinion of you, though."

"It's not his opinion I care about," I scoff. "But I do have my own dignity to think of."

"Good," he says, his smirk growing, and the flicker of intent in his eyes as he takes a step forward makes my stomach flip. "Not that I mind a little competition, of course. But I hate not being the center of attention."

I take a step back to compensate, unconsciously raising a hand between us in an attempt to maintain the distance. He keeps advancing, forcing me to retreat further. Almost like he's stalking me. I bite my lip at the notion.

"I could arrange for a soapbox and a spotlight," I quip, still backing away. "That should draw some attention."

"Not the center of _their_ attention, as I'm sure you're well aware," he rolls his eyes gently, ensnarling his fingers in mine between us. "I meant yours."

"You've got your work cut out for you, then," I lob back, unable to contain my smile. "My focus tends to shift. I get bored easily."

He tugs on my hand, slowing my progress, and traps me around the waist with his other hand, dipping down to bring his lips close to mine as I fruitlessly—and half-heartedly—try to pull away. He's smiling, too. "You let me worry about that."

I laugh aloud—only to mask my squeal—as he presses forward, as though to steal a kiss, and my back bumps another guest.

"Oh!" I yip, spinning to apologize. "I'm so sorry—"

"Zelda?" Shad's dusky eyes widen as he recognizes me, and I'm sure I look similarly surprised. Link had distracted me so thoroughly I'd actually forgotten about him. Mission accomplished, I guess. The woman he's with is locked in conversation with someone else, and doesn't bother diverting her attention when he does. Shad runs his eyes over me in a quick appraisal, and I reflexively don a more graceful deportment. "You're looking well."

"I am, thank you," I answer mechanically. Link's hand is still around my waist, and the hand holding my champagne glass is on his shoulder, making us look a little tangled in each other. "Link, this is Shad."

"Pleased to meet you." He untangles himself from me to reach out and shake his hand. "It's always nice to meet one of Zelda's colleagues."

"Um," he shrugs, taking a slow blink. "We're not so much colleagues as acquaintances. We aren't in any of the same programs."

"Ah," Link nods. "That makes more sense."

I have no idea where he's going with this, but the displeased glimmer in Shad's eyes suggests it's working. His brow pinches together briefly as he takes the bait. "Does it?"

Link makes an affirmative sound in his throat as he takes a sip of champagne. "You just don't look like much of a scientist."

Oh dear.

Shad arches a cynical eyebrow, but Link pretends to be oblivious. "So, what are you majoring in?"

"Historical linguistics and archaeology," he mutters. But he's sharp, and is quick to bat it back. "And you? I haven't seen you at Lanayru, but you must be studying somewhere. What are you pursuing?"

Link chuckles quietly, sparing me a quick glance. "No, actually. As soon as I got my degree I spent a few years apprenticing abroad, and then came back to make something of myself. I had too much I wanted to accomplish to spend the rest of my 20s stuck in a university."

"An entrepreneur?" he smirks crookedly, turning his eyes on me. "Not your usual fare, Zelda."

"No," I smile. I know he meant it to be an insult, but I feel a soft swell of pride at the label. It makes it all the more remarkable that he's been so successful. "He certainly isn't."

"Thank the gods," Link chimes in. "You should hear about some of the pompous bores her parents have tried to saddle her with."

Shad's eyes narrow in spite of himself, and I'm trapped between horror and amusement. "Have they indeed?"

His date turns then, looks at both of us, and then hands Shad her empty champagne glass and says, "Get me another drink."

He takes it slowly, looking Link over again before he turns.

I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to see how that would turn out, but maybe it's for the best.

"Well, well," she says, her lips curling into a knowing smirk beneath her raven eyes. "I didn't expect to find you here."

"I could say the same," he returns, putting his arm around my waist reassuringly as he goes to introduce me. "Zelda, this is Ashei. Smart as a whip, total gold-digger. Has that sort of dark temptress thing going on."

"Nice to meet you," I smile.

Ashei nods obliquely at me. "Don't worry about protecting Shad, Link. He knows this isn't serious. Besides, he's an heir. He didn't have to earn it himself, so he has no qualms about spending it on his arm candy. What are you doing here?"

"Also arm candy," he smirks. "Zelda's a genius archaeotechnology student, and I convinced her to come so we could mess with everyone."

"Classic Link," she mutters, passing me a sympathetic glance. "How's the _Domain_?"

"Not bad, though I guess I have been neglecting her a bit."

Her eyes drift to me, and there's a glimmer to intrigue in them that makes me feel unusually self-conscious. "You don't say," she murmurs.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, and as I turn to acknowledge it I can't help but gasp.

"Midna!" I exclaim quietly, reflexively throwing my arms around her. She giggles, returning the gesture, until I remember myself and pry myself away. I manage to keep my squealed inquiries hushed, but I can't keep my excitement from shining through. "What are you doing here?! When did you get back?"

"Just this week," Midna replies, her answering smile assuring me that she's just as happy to see me, even if she doesn't act quite as juvenile.

Midna, being a Twili, isn't one for the false flattery and one-upmanship common among Lanayru students, so naturally we hit it off. She's one of the few Twili who have ever made an effort to enroll, and she's brilliant. She spent the last four years on an extended tour abroad to different colleges, included several back in the Twilight, so we've only kept in touch via email. She's something of an ambassador between the realms.

She pulls me away a few steps so we can talk without being overheard; Link looks as though he was about to turn after us, but Ashei stopped him with a touch on the arm and is saying something that makes him hesitate. "It was very educational and super great, blah blah blah. Who's that you're with?"

"Link," I answer with a laugh, my smile growing more private as I look his way. "He's not a student; he owns this upscale restaurant in town, _Zora's Domain_. It's not new, but it probably opened after you left."

He and Ashei are looking at me, too, and she's smiling. I'm sure they're talking about me, I'm just not sure what to make of it.

"He seems nice," Midna says, eyeing him, and then turns her crimson gaze on me. "I'm glad you're having some fun for a change. Just don't let him get too attached."

"Attached?" I smirk, furrowing my brow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you know," she shrugs. "Your parents will never go for him. I know you won't let yourself get in too deep, but he might. You can have fun together, just make sure you set boundaries."

"Oh," I mutter, sipping my champagne absently as the gears in my head start to spin furiously. "Yeah, of course. We have boundaries."

"You're too practical not to," she concedes.

Boundaries. We have boundaries. Don't we? I mean we haven't gotten together _that_ many times. I spent the night at his house but that was just because we fell asleep in front of the TV and it was raining. He knows that. He knows this can't progress into a real relationship. Right? I mean, it can't. Can it?

The thought weighs on me heavier than I dare admit to her, or even to myself.

Finally Ashei lets Link go and wanders back towards Shad, and Link comes back to me.

"Link, this is Midna," I introduce him. I'm too happy for the distraction, and I fight off a frown as I realize it. "We've been friends for years."

"Friends?" he says, his eyebrows shooting up. "That's a pleasant surprise. Nice to meet you."

"Same," she smirks, passing me a wink.

Midna talks with us for a while, recounting the places she's been and grilling Link—not so much that he's uncomfortable, but enough so he knows he'll have to pay for it if he doesn't treat me like a goddess, which amuses him. Afterwards, she spends a couple hour choosing targets with us and helping us create ridiculous stories to confound them with, and he starts this trend of tracing my bare spine with his fingertips whenever I'm about to say something, which is so tantalizing and fiery on my skin that it usually renders me speechless and it's beyond infuriating.

Eventually Midna decides her obligatory attendance has been fulfilled and heads home, leaving the two of us to fend for ourselves. We don't carry on once she's left, as we're both a little tired of it and it's getting harder to keep track of all the lies we've told and to whom. But there's lots of food and drink to be had, and the setting is beautiful, so we stay for a while.

"I like Midna," he says as we stand near one of the grand bay windows, surrounded by twinkling lights. "She's sharp."

"She's great," I agree. He's watching me sidelong,

"What were you two talking about?"

I feel the familiar, unpleasant weight on my chest at the mention of it and decide a counterargument is in order. "What were you and Ashei talking about?"

"I asked you first."

"I asked you second."

He laughs quietly, running a hand through his hair. "Fine. Keep your secrets."

"Well," I sigh, dropping it so he won't pursue it further. "We've survived the evening, thanks to you. Do you want to go?"

"If you want," he allows, and we enter a shallow strain of silence. He's staring at me again, and I'm not sure what to do with myself.

"It's been a long night," I finally reason, but his expression is so fixed I'm not sure he heard me.

"I did tease you a lot," he admits after a moment, his lip quirking up.

I roll my eyes. "When you said you wanted to come here to mess with everyone, I didn't think you were including me."

"I don't think I specified."

"You're so impossible," I laugh exasperatedly, too tired to manage much else.

He faces me then, gently trailing his fingers up my jaw and tilting my chin up so his eyes can lock with mine, burning that deep, hazy azure in the dim light. "I think I've teased you enough for one night."

His eyes flick to my mouth and I subconsciously wet my lips, letting my eyelids grow heavy as he closes the little distance left between us. He finally presses his lips to mine, and the resolution of it is glorious. I half expect every tiny lightbulb suspended around us to explode in a shower of sparks. He experiments, tasting me in new ways, and I reciprocate without thinking, mimicking his movements and pressing myself flush against him.

But even as I run my fingers across his scalp and let my hands fist in his hair, and I feel his hands wandering over me, a nagging voice in the back of my mind is reciting Midna's advice.

_Make sure you set boundaries._

His kisses are turning more urgent, deepening, and the sound of him panting is sending fire through me.

_I know you won't let yourself get in too deep._

He kisses the corner of my mouth, the edge of my jaw, and gently gnaws the side of my neck, and maybe it's the champagne, maybe I'm just being stupid, but I can't get enough of the way it feels when he's touching me like this and I keep telling the voice to just _shut up_. I hold him as close as I can, tipping my head back with a sigh. But the voice is still there.

_Just don't let him get too attached._

I keep my eyes shut tight, and he whispers my name in his sweet voice, and suddenly I know that the voice is not going to go away.


	5. Not My First Fight

This isn't my first fight, but it's the first time that every sarcastic remark and angry rejection makes me feel like I'm losing more than just an argument.

"Gods, Link, can't you take a hint? I have enough going on in my life right now without you constantly pressuring me to drop everything whenever it's convenient for you!"

"How is this constantly pressuring?! I haven't heard from you in almost two weeks! For all I knew you were lying dead in an overturned car on the side of the freeway somewhere!"

"I never asked you to keep tabs on me! I already have a set of overbearing parents; I don't need you demanding updates every hour, too!"

I sigh, trying to compose myself. I knew something was wrong, I just didn't know it was going to explode in my face like this.

"What are you saying, Zelda?" I try again, my voice gravelly from all the noise. "Do you want space?"

"Space," she laughs humorlessly. "Yeah, Link, I need space. I think we both need space."

I can only stare at her, trying to process that. But she won't even look me in the eye. "What is that supposed to mean?"

It all started after the party at her university. She was distracted and quiet the whole ride home, and was still acting strangely the next time we got together—which was unusually difficult to coordinate, even for her prohibitively busy schedule. When I tried to ask her about it, she gave me a sterile smile and said she was fine. We ate dinner and watched a movie, and I kissed her goodbye.

And then she shut me out altogether. She wouldn't return my texts or calls for more than a week.

Finally I just drove to her place and knocked on her door. She begrudgingly let me inside, looking a little bedraggled, and then tried to play it off like nothing was wrong. That lasted for all of five minutes.

She sighs, too, dithering before she responds to my question in a voice that's pointedly bland. "It means you've gotten too attached."

I blink once, certain I've misheard. "What?"

"We want different things. Our lives are traveling in different directions. If you can't operate under those conditions, then we should just call it off."

Maybe I'm just being unusually dense, but it almost sounds like she's trying to justify a breakup—and blame it on me. But that can't be, because the way she kissed me at the university not that long ago was definitely communicating something different. You don't have to be a Lanayru professor to recognize when someone you're crazy about cares about you too. I could feel it in the way she touched me, the way she pressed into me and met my every advance. I know she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

So if she thinks I'm just going to scurry away from her emotionless dissertation on the matter with my tail between my legs, she can think again.

I run a hand through my hair while I think, and then cross back to her, forcing her to look me in the eyes. "Zelda, where in the world is this coming from?" I confront her levelly. "What did I do?"

"It's not you, Link," she says. Her eyes are a little startled, but mostly they're sad, and that scares me more than anything. "It's me."

I can't help my reaction. My expression drops into an irritated deadpan. "You did _not_ just say that."

She rolls her eyes, the sadness vaporized and replaced by more anger. "This is exactly what I'm talking about. You never take anything seriously! I live a different life! I have to meet different expectations!"

"I'm not asking you not to live your life, Zelda!" I protest, and then check myself, reining in my voice again. "You seemed fine with things the way they were until now. What's changed?"

"Nothing's changed," she groans.

"Don't pretend," I demand, unamused. "I deserve an answer."

"It's the truth," she frowns. "Nothing's changed. This was never going to last. It was just for fun. My parents have definite expectations about who they'd have me consider for a serious relationship, and you don't fit the bill."

"Your _parents_ —" I try to interject, but she cuts me off before I can get going.

"Don't bother trying to blame them. They're right. I'm not going along with it just to please them. I'm doing it because it's smart. You aren't practical for me. You never have been."

"I don't believe this," I breathe, hardly able to register it all at once. "You're ready to end it, just like that? Give up just because I went to the wrong college?"

"There's nothing to give up, Link. I always knew this wouldn't go anywhere. And it's apparent you're more invested in this than you should be." She says it so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that I can't help but feel a twinge of doubt, that she might actually believe it. "And you're oversimplifying our differences. It's a lot more than attending the wrong college."

I try to stand my ground, but inside I can feel my resolve fracturing. "Enlighten me."

She folds her arms, and I wonder if she's going to give me a straight answer. I can see her running the calculations behind those stunning, clever blue eyes of hers, analyzing and compartmentalizing everything that's happened between us the last couple months and rummaging through the data for logical conclusions. The objectivity is making my stomach churn. But instead of spitting out a cascade of statistics and equations, she gives me a clipped, void response.

"I don't expect you to understand."

"Flattering," I sneer acridly, but the answering eye roll I'm expecting doesn't come.

"How could you? You've spent your life chasing after a dream. You don't understand what it is to do what you do or be who you are because it's expected of you."

"You're right, I don't, because that doesn't make any sense!" I fire back. "How can you resign yourself to living your life doing what other people demand of you? What about what _you_ want, Zelda?"

"This is the difference," she says quietly. All the anger is gone. There's only the detached, cold aloofness of fact. "This is who I am. I've made choices you could never respect, or let lie; this is why this could never progress into something more."

"I see," I say curtly, stung. Her detachment is a thousand times worse than her anger had been. "And you didn't consider bringing this up before? Or maybe consulting me instead of just cutting me off when you thought I'd gotten in too deep?"

"Breakups are rarely mutual," she tells me remotely, like it was some factoid she read it in a peer reviewed paper recently. "I was trying to save us both this headache."

"That's what I am to you now? A headache?" I carry on, trying to reignite the spark that's been smothered out of her eyes. I'd rather have all the fury she can muster turned on me than accept what she's trying to force feed me: that she never cared.

But the strike glances off her shield like a dull, unwieldy blade. "I'm very sorry you've gotten hurt. I didn't think it would escalate this quickly."

It's like talking to a wall.

It's like she's rehearsed this, and nothing I say will change the outcome of this conversation.

"Zelda—"

"Please just go."

She's staring at the hardwood floor, and I'm staring at her, and I don't know what to do with myself. Do I stand my ground, refuse to walk out, insist on continuing the argument in the blind hope that I can get her to change her mind? Do I try to convince her that this can work, that regardless of the expectations she thinks having me around will keep her from meeting I can find a way to be what she needs me to be? Do I beg her to let me prove that I'm good enough?

Do I just leave?

The more I think about it, the more the disappointment melts away and the more I feel anger welling up in its place. She says she never meant for us to have a real relationship, which I'm not sure I believe, but if it's true I'm not going to humiliate myself trying to win the affections of someone who doesn't care for me as I am. But even if it isn't true, it isn't fair for her to dangle other people's expectations over my head. Not like this. If she came to me with concerns, if she was worried she would be chastised for wanting me, I could understand that. I could've helped her, done whatever it took to satisfy the people she's trying to appease so we could be together. But she didn't. She decided it would be better to just drop me; she wasn't even honest about it until I pried an explanation out of her, and I'm not even sure she's being honest with me now. _That_ leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, and suddenly I don't feel like begging.

So I turn around and I leave.

The car ride home is an angry blur. I don't know what I'm thinking or where I'm going, and by the time I find myself up in the penthouse, staring over the glowing skyline, I feel like I've been hit by a bus.

I just can't wrap my head around it. I haven't felt this blindsided since…

Hmm. Maybe being hit by a bus wasn't the best metaphor.

I run a hand through my hair and cross the room to pour myself a drink, like that's going to help. It doesn't. If anything, the fogginess it pulls over my brain just makes my imaginings of her more vivid; the piercing blue of her eyes more vibrant; the phantom sensation of her tousled hair more silken; and I don't know if I regret drinking it or not. But it does get me drowsy enough to fall asleep, which I try to convince myself was the plan all along.

I spend the next two weeks engrossed in my work, thinking up every excuse imaginable to do overtime, from deep cleaning all the ovens to reinventing large sections of the menu. It isn't as riveting as it used to be, but it is familiar and sufficiently numbing. Sometimes I can stop thinking about her completely during the dinner rush because I just don't have the brain capacity to do both at once. But I can feel it bleeding into my performance anyway. I'm snapping at the guys over trivial mistakes, and everyone is giving me a wide berth.

Mikau was even brave enough to ask how things were going once, but my clipped response apparently communicated to everyone, very loudly, that Zelda wasn't a topic that should be brought up ever again.

It seemed like a normal reaction at the time, but eventually I get the feeling that something's not right, like there's a hole in my chest or in my head that I've been ignoring. But no matter how I run them in circles in my head, her arguments don't make any more sense to me than they did the night she said them.

The night of the party, when we'd been kissing each other breathless, she'd stopped to look me in the eyes, flushed and exquisite, and nearly said something. But then she'd changed her mind, smiling gently, and kissed me again. I had relived that moment a dozen times as I tried to fall asleep that night, wearing a dumb smile. I hadn't know what she had wanted to say, but I assumed it could only have been something good.

Now I wasn't so sure. Had she known, even then? Had she been considering making it clear that she wasn't interested in something serious? Was she going to warn me not to get too involved? What made her change her mind? And I kept rewinding, going through our exchanges and my memories of us with a critical eye. Everything was tainted. I couldn't keep the signals straight. I was driving myself crazy.

Zelda had been right about one thing: I had gotten too attached. I don't know how I let my guard down, or why, but the way this is eating me up is evidence enough. No girl is worth this; I'm irritable and distracted and the one good thing to come out of this is that I won't let it happen again. Or, at least, that's what I want to think. But my inner voice is contradicting me with more conviction than I can recall having towards anything in recent memory, and even though it's painful I can't deny that I feel it: She is worth it.

One night, after I brush my teeth and climb into bed, when I had worked myself into a frustrated mess and could only stare sleeplessly at the ceiling, I do the unthinkable. I pick up the phone.

And I call Ashei.

It rings four times, and her amused voice comes over the line, not even bothering to say hello.

"Trouble in paradise?"

I resist the urge to growl at her, doing my best to mask my response in dispassion. I'm tempted to just hang up. "What makes you say that?"

"Because there is literally no other reason in the universe that would compel you to call me," she snorts, like it's obvious and I'm dumber than a zol. "What happened?"

"I don't even know," I mutter humorlessly.

"So it's over, then?"

A breath I didn't realize I was holding rushes out of me and I plop a pillow over my face. "I guess so."

She pauses. "That doesn't sound like you."

"No?"

"You just got finished telling me she's the best thing that's ever happened to you. And now you're going to let her walk away without putting up a fight?"

"I don't know," I whisper.

"Get your face out of the comforters."

"It's a pillow."

"Whatever. You're such a baby."

I scowl and throw the pillow across the room with more force than is strictly warranted. "And you're annoying. This is so stupid; I don't even know why I called you."

"Because I'm the only person in the world you told about her."

Din above, I hate her sometimes.

"You're confused and you need to talk it out," she continues, a little less antagonistically. "What did she say?"

I take a breath and wait, wondering if it's worth it. But then it's spilling out like an avalanche. "She said that our lives are going in opposite directions and that she has expectations to meet, and that we're too different. That I could never understand what it's like to be who I am or do what I do because it's expected of me, because I've spent my whole life chasing a dream."

It feels good once it's out, like everything is clearer. She sounds so crazy, so ridiculous and unreasonable and so incredibly _wrong_.

Which is, of course, why Ashei chimes in wistfully, "Well, she's not wrong."

" _What?!_ "

"She's not," she insists. "You're just too busy nursing your injured ego to consider it."

"I'm hanging up on you."

"Fine."

I growl aloud, barely resisting the urge to throw the phone. "How is she, in any way at all, not wrong? How can you even say that?"

"Because you've spent your entire adult life bucking people's expectations to always do what _you_ wanted. That's not a bad thing, Link, it's the reason you've been so successful. It's just different. She's not like you. Did you even see how pompous that gala was? Lanayru University is an institution built on archaic rules and schools of etiquette that she's been groomed to live by her whole life. You probably didn't notice because you spent the entire party being a disruptive influence. Which only proves my point."

I swallow the bitter taste in my mouth and muster another retort, refusing to acknowledge the possibility. "I can't believe you're taking her side."

"I don't necessarily agree with her conclusion, or her actions. I'm just pointing out that her concerns are valid. Which I'm sure is more than you did."

"What—?!" I try to counter, readying a blustery denial, but she cuts in before I can articulate any of it.

"Did you validate her feelings or did you tell her she was being stupid?"

"I didn't use the word stupid," I mutter, but we both know her point is made.

"So," she moves on. "Why are you talking to me about it instead of her?"

"She said she always knew this would never turn into a real relationship and that it was just for fun." I pause, and she waits. I purse my lips, and she doesn't say anything. Followed by more silence. My voice is just a murmur when I finally reach the conclusion she's forcing me to admit. "And if that turns out to be true, it's going to feel pretty brutal."

"So you're afraid of rejection."

"Are you just trying to goad me?" I deadpan. "Because it feels like you're goading me."

"There's no shame in that," she says quietly. "You've lost two of the most important relationships in your life already, and you haven't let anyone else get that close to you in a long time. The fact that she might be lying is probably comforting in a way. It means that the relationship might not be lost. But if she isn't lying… well."

There's another strain of silence while I reflect on her argument.

"You do know me well," I concede.

"Just because I was dating you for your money doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention."

"Speaking of, how are things with Shad?"

"He bought me a sports car."

I shake my head, my lip quirking up into a sardonic smirk. "Atta girl."

"You'll figure it out, Link," she assures me, being uncharacteristically generous. "But I haven't seen you that happy, ever. Don't let this end in a question mark, unless you're sure that's what you really want."

"Yes, mother," I sigh.

"That's it, I quit," she drones, and then she hangs up on me.

I smirk as I turn the phone in my hand, shooting her a parting text.

_Thanks._

I cross the room to retrieve the pillow I chucked earlier, and then go back to staring at the ceiling. I still don't know what I'm going to do. I don't even know if I feel better or worse for having talked about it.

So one can imagine there were a lot of conflicting emotions when I saw Zelda having dinner with someone else at the _Domain_ the next week.


	6. Not My First Dinner, Again

This isn't my first time going to dinner at _Zora's Domain_. Which is precisely why I'm dreading it so much. And though I'm putting up as much of a fuss as is societally appropriate, my date tonight doesn't seem bothered.

"I really don't think it will be a problem, Zelda," he tries to placate me after I've tried for the umpteenth time to talk him into going somewhere else. "When's the last time you went to a restaurant and the chef waltzed out of the kitchen into the dining room?"

"I suppose," I manage with a halfhearted shrug, but though my exterior is collected as ever my stomach is turning to knots and I'm swiftly losing my appetite.

I wish he would just listen. I mentally add inattentive to the list of cons I'm composing based on tonight's interactions. He has some good points too, of course, or we wouldn't even be here. He's got the education my parents will love and the financial security they'll insist on. He's well-liked in all the right social circles and handsome in an exotic way, with his tall build, olive skin, burning tawny eyes, and flaming red hair. He's the sole heir of a multibillion rupee corporation and considered one of the most eligible bachelors this side of the desert.

Who wouldn't be interested in an evening out with Ganondorf Dragmire?

Most girls would fawn over the sleek black Ferrari he drove up in or the confident gleam in his eyes when he complimented my outfit, but there is something very plastic about it all that I can't seem to overlook.

Very plastic, but very practical. It's unpleasantly familiar.

"This will be a night to remember," he purrs, a satisfied grin playing on his features. "I promise."

I retreat into an anxious silence, and a few minutes later we pull up to the familiar building with the aquarium walls. We entrust the car to the valet and walk to the reception, where the maître d' briefly locks eyes with me, flickering with recognition, and I wish I could just disappear. A split second later, they're glazed again with professional dispassion, but it's too late to dowse the shame burning a hole in my chest.

"The name on the reservation?" he inquires politely.

"Dragmire," Ganondorf smiles. But beneath the veneer I can tell he's irked that he had to identify himself.

"Yes, of course. We're delighted to have you and your guest this evening, Mr. Dragmire," he smiles tautly. "Please follow me."

The walk to the table is more hellish than I'd imagined. Ganondorf insists on offering me his arm and parading me the whole way, and Mikau nearly drops his tray when he sees me. I imagine I look completely miserable as we take our seats at the lovely table beside the aquarium, but if I am, Ganon gives no indication that he notices. I'm staring numbly at the menu, terrible, wonderful memories tormenting me as they stir awake, and it takes me a while to realize he's talking.

"—and they were doing so well my cousin just bought the vineyard. Shall we order a bottle?"

I blink away a flurry of scales and lights playing in my mind's eye and the phantom sensation of lips, hands, and water, trying to wrap my head around his suggestion. I manage a meager, "Sure."

"Excellent," he murmurs, smiling privately, and his eyes scan me once. "I can't tell you how pleased I am that we were finally able to do this."

I try to smile politely, but the expression feels tight across my mouth. "So am I."

I reach for my glass and sip the water, trying to distract myself from the unpleasantness of my insincerity. The ice cubes clink against the crystal when I set it down, tinkling softly against the harp and piano echoing overhead, and my mind starts wandering again at the familiarity of it. My hands fist in my lap. I should never have agreed to this. I try to blink away the frustration and focus as he lays a token on the center of the table between us.

"I got you something to commemorate the evening," he says, opening the box. The bracelet within is stunning, delicate and strung with genuine opals encrusted in sapphires, arranged in branching clusters that look like the feathery spokes of a snowflake.

"Oh," I breathe, filled with dread, and he takes my hand, trying to draw my wrist closer. "Ganondorf, I couldn't possibly accept this—"

"Nonsense," he chuckles. "It'll bring out your eyes."

"I just wouldn't be comfortable—"

"Zelda, please," he barges on, draping it across my wrist and turning my arm over. "It's just a little gift to let you know how much I'm looking forward to tonight."

A little gift that definitely cost more than my car. "But—"

"Ah ah!" he interrupts again, fastening the clasp. "There. What did I tell you?" He smirks again, a satisfied glint in his gaze. "It suits you perfectly."

Before I can marshal a reply the waiter arrives, clearing his throat gently to get our attention. Mikau, of course. The gods wouldn't be content with sending anyone else. Ganondorf orders the wine I obliviously agreed to earlier and his own meal. Then Mikau turns to me.

"And do you know what you would like this evening, Miss?"

"Umm," I manage, my voice barely a whisper. I try desperately not to look at him, or my wrist, and fixate on Ganondorf instead. I hadn't even looked at the menu in earnest.

"You said you liked what you had the last time you were here, didn't you?" Ganondorf asked, being the exact opposite of helpful.

"I don't remember which dish it was," I answer lamely.

"Perhaps if you could describe your previous meal for me…?" Mikau offers, playing the perfect, clueless waiter.

I can't help it; I sigh aloud and roll my eyes, handing him the menu. "You know which one it was."

"Very good, Miss," he says, wearing a poorly disguised smirk as he takes our menus and leaves.

I lean my forehead into my hand, only to recoil when I catch sight of the bracelet in my peripheral vision and shove my hands under the table.

I'm a mess. An absolute mess. How am I supposed to forget him when there are reminders of him everywhere I look?

An unwelcome, sodden knot rises in my throat. I knew letting him go would be awful, but I didn't know it would be this bad. The worst part had been the look in his eyes, so honest and tempestuous and blue: the unmistakable, unforgiving burn of betrayal.

"So, Zelda," Ganondorf starts again, oblivious to my misery. "After dinner, I thought I might give you a tour of the estate."

I furrow my brow as I try to reconcile his proposal with the hour, swallowing my discomfort as I turn my attention to the task at hand. "In the desert? Isn't that rather far?"

"Villainous has a helipad not far from here," he explains, giving me another smile. He certainly loves flaunting his toys. "All the corporate transportation is at our disposal. The grounds are quite magnificent from the air; they call it the _Goddess of the Sand_ for a reason."

Somehow I get the feeling he isn't going to take no for an answer. I take a drink of water, opting not to respond. The sommelier arrives with our bottle of wine, pours him a taste, and then fills our glasses after Ganondorf nods in approval. He takes another drink and then laces his fingers around the hips of his chalice, swirling it lazily as he watches me.

"You're not at all like I'd imagined you'd be," he tells me quietly.

He hasn't given me the opportunity to tell him anything about myself other than my objection to coming here tonight, which he ignored, so I can't imagine what that's supposed to mean. "In what way?"

"Well, you know," he shrugs. "Scientists have a reputation for being terribly dull, and either painfully awkward or needlessly chatty. But not you. You're elegant and fascinating; there's not a man in this room who wouldn't love to be seen with you."

I would love to not be seen at all right about now. I smile plastically. "You're too kind."

"Zelda," he says, placing his hand over mine. I go rigid at his unexpected touch, but don't move otherwise. "I know billionaires like me have a reputation, too. But I don't want you to think I'm after some fling; you're a woman of quality, and I would never treat our relationship so lightly."

I slide my hand out from under his and take my wineglass with it, trying not to betray my revulsion. He's so transparently rehearsed that it only reinforces the idea that his ability to show me genuine interest is meager at best. I stare at the swaying burgundy liquid, misgiving knotting itself in the pit of my stomach.

I can't do this. I can't fake another smile. I can't pretend that there's even the smallest possibility that this shallow, arrogant man could ever make me happy, no matter how rich and educated and well-connected he is. I set the glass down and fiddle with the clasp of the bracelet, shaking my head gently as I try to work the tiny piece into submission.

"Ganondorf—"

"Excellent," he interrupts as the food begins to arrive. I recognize his dish as the first one I ever tried here: fatty and sugary and hard not to like. He takes a forkful and sighs minutely over it. "Exquisite."

The nutty aroma wafting off my plate momentarily distracts me from my urge to terminate the evening, and I slowly reach for my utensil. I suppose I can tolerate him a bit longer. No sense in letting the meal go to waste.

I take a bite and it's perfect. Complex and earthy, aromatic, tantalizing in its newness and in the way it defies conventions. I can taste him in it, the reflection of his personality in its construction; rebellious and sultry and teasing.

I'm loath to share, but I can't help myself. "Would you like a bite?" I offer.

His mouth quirks up into a smirk as he reaches over to take some on his fork. His expression shifts as he tastes it; his brow furrows a little, his eyes misting over in sensation and thought. Almost instantly it's gone, and he makes a noncommittal sound. "Not crazy about that one."

I nearly laugh.

Mikau reappears, approaching the table hesitantly. "Is everything to your liking this evening?"

"Absolutely," Ganondorf smiles hugely. "Please give my compliments to the chef."

There's a sizable thud in my mind as realization drops from its unpleasant height into my awareness, and my eyes widen in alarm. But it's too late.

"Thank you. I'll be certain to pass that along," Mikau says, all but serenading us with his delight, and disappears before I can stop him in my shock.

I turn back to Ganondorf, alarmed and furious. " _Why would you say that?!_ "

His brow furrows again in confusion. "Why would I say what?"

"'Compliments to the chef'? Are you out of your mind?"

"Oh, that's right," he chuckles. "I'd forgotten. Well, don't worry. I doubt he'll come out to greet us personally."

"You're _Ganondorf Dragmire_!" I shriek in a frantic whisper. "You're a billionaire and the sole heir of one of the largest corporations in the world! He'll be _obligated_ to come see you himself!"

"Hmm," he agrees, taking another sip of wine. "Well, I'm sure I can handle him. Don't worry, Zelda, I'll take care of it."

Panic. Complete and utter panic. Din, Farore, and Nayru shroud us all in eternal shadow, this is a nightmare. I bury my face in my hands for an instant, gripped by despair, and then slam them down on the table.

"This is exactly what I said would happen!" I hiss.

"Zelda, please, calm down," he scoffs.

I am _way_ beyond calm down. This is the most humiliating, horrifying, agonizing thing that's ever happened to me, and I want to die. Or, at least, I thought I wanted to die. I thought I was miserable enough to want that. But a few moments later, Link steps out of the kitchen, his startled blue eyes darkening as they lock with mine, and _then_ I'm miserable enough to want to die.

Link crosses the room to our table, looking stately and confident in his chef's tunic. It suits him, removing any doubt that this place is his and he belongs here. I would've loved to be able to feel pride; I think that's what I would've felt if things were different. But as it is, I can't find it in myself to appreciate his appearance. I'm still fixated on my insistent death craving.

"Well, well, Ganondorf Dragmire," he smiles amicably. "It's not every day we have the heir of Villainous himself in our dining room. I hope your meal is to your liking."

Ganondorf passes me a subdued smirk. An 'I told you so' if I've ever seen one. "Delicious as always."

"Interesting pairing," Link mutters, his brow quirking as he reaches across the table and turns the bottle to see the label more clearly. "Did my sommelier recommend this?"

"No," Ganondorf chuckles. "My cousin owns the vineyard. I thought we should give it a try."

"Ah, I see," he smiles again. It's more plastic than mine and humorless; it doesn't suit him at all. He still hasn't looked my way, and I'm nursing a tiny ember of hope that he'll just walk away without acknowledging me. "And speaking of pairings—"

Nope.

His blue eyes, flickering with dark humor, slide gently to me. "I see you've brought the lovely Zelda Nohansen with you tonight. A nice choice; complements pretty much any bouquet and works for any occasion. A word to the wise, though," he murmurs, leaning in closer, "she gets bored easily. Try to keep her entertained if you want her to stick around for more than a couple weeks."

"Link, please," I reprimand him in hushed tones. "Don't make a scene."

"It's just a piece of friendly advice," he deflects placatingly, and then his azure eyes meet mine, depthless and daring as ever. "And don't worry—I won't take that as some sort of indication that you care at all for my opinion. I know it's just that you have your dignity to think of."

I can feel my cheeks burning as I mutter my exasperated retort. "You are being _such_ a child."

"And is that better or worse than being like one of your overbearing parents?"

I roll my eyes with a scoff. Ganondorf is watching us bicker unhelpfully; he doesn't seem particularly riled at all, just confused that he isn't the center of attention for once. "Everything is a joke to you!"

"On the contrary, I don't think this is funny at all. Your standards are so convoluted, even you can't keep them straight. Have you warned him about that yet—" he turns quickly to my date, "—what was your name again? Ganondrag Dorfmire?"

"Link!" I hiss, mortified. "You are _embarrassing_ me!"

"You should be embarrassed," he retorts, his expression bland. "If I was caught rebounding this badly by my ex _at his restaurant_ , I would be too."

"Now, listen—" Ganon tries to interject, about to rise from his seat and probably launch into some noble defense of my character (or perhaps the correct pronunciation of his name), but Link doesn't give him the chance.

"No, no, don't get up," he insists. "Far be it from me to intrude on your romantic evening. You are paying customers after all. Unless—you weren't expecting me to pay for your dinner tonight, too, were you Zel?" He shoots Ganon a charming smile before I can overcome my flush and says, just before he walks away, "Enjoy your meal."

He's half way to the kitchen before I can react.

"I cannot _believe_ him!" I growl, throwing my cloth napkin on the ground in as pure a tantrum as I have ever thrown and stomping after him before Ganondorf can calm me down. I burst through the in door and storm up to his station where he's about to compose a plate. He doesn't even have the decency to look my way. I narrow my eyes at him and bite out, "You've got some nerve, Link."

"Pfft," he counters unceremoniously, rolling his eyes, and is about to taste test one of the sauces when I rip the spoon out of his hand and toss it over my shoulder. "What the—?! Zelda! What is your problem?!"

" _You_ are my problem!" I shout back, oblivious to the chaos of the kitchen around me. Fires are blazing, waiters are rushing, cooks are shouting; but I'm not about to let anything distract me from winning this argument. "I have never met anyone in my entire _life_ who could be so immature and narcissistic!"

"Says the girl who just grabbed the spoon right out of my mouth and threw it on the floor like a Kokiri throwing a tantrum," he lobs back, pointedly grabbing another utensil and tasting the sauce without my interference. Satisfied, he dresses the plate with it and moves off to another station, forcing me to follow amidst a flurry of kitchen staff carrying hot pans and frighteningly sharp knives. He sighs as I join him at the next counter. "Do you mind? I'm trying to work here."

"As a matter of fact, I do mind," I say, reining myself in as much as I can. "This is exactly why it could never work out between us. You don't know how to take anything seriously!"

"Not that you ever gave me a _chance_ ," he bites back, giving me his full attention for an entire half second before he whips back to his cutting board where some prepped vegetables are about to suffer the brunt of his irritation. "You always knew I wouldn't be good enough for you and that this would never go anywhere. You said so yourself. But did you have the decency to tell me that? No. You just strung me along until you got bored. If you ask me, it sounds like you're the one who doesn't take anything seriously."

"Don't put words in my mouth. I never said you weren't good enough for me. I said my parents—"

He scrapes the minced vegetables off the cutting board into a roasting pan and smacks the knife down on the counter, startling me into silence. "Your parents would _love_ me."

"Your cockiness was a lot cuter before I realized how much you actually believe it," I snap.

"There's a difference between being cocky and being confident, Princess," he corrects me harshly. "I would've won them over."

"You are being so incredibly obtuse! You don't even know them!"

"No, _you're_ the one being obtuse, as usual! It doesn't matter that I don't know them, Zelda! I would've fought for you! You just don't know what that's like because you've never been in a genuine relationship in your life!"

That stung.

It stung because he was right. I had gotten so used to keeping people at arm's length that I probably hadn't ever experienced a real, vulnerable, sincere relationship before. But the worst part was hearing him say he would've fought for me, and realizing how badly I would've wanted that.

But I screwed it up before he got the chance.

His eyes are alight with fire and intensity, and suddenly I can't hold his gaze anymore. I let my eyes drop to the tile floor; angry tears are budding in them, but I refuse to let them go.

So much for winning this argument.

I can't think of anything to say and I hate it. I turn wordlessly and wander back to where I had thrown the spoon, picking it up off the floor and dropping it in one of the sinks. When I turn around he's standing right behind me.

"Why are you being so stubborn?" he mutters.

I sigh, exasperated. "I'm not being any more stubborn than usual."

"You are," he disagrees, but not in such a way as to pick a fight. He's just stating a fact, and wondering at it. "Why did you back down just now?"

I shrug tersely, furrowing my brow. "It doesn't matter."

"Just answer the question."

"Because you were right."

"That's never stopped you before."

I toss my eyes as disdainfully as I can muster and make to brush past him, but he grabs my wrist before I can get far, forcing me to face him again.

"Would it kill you to be honest with me for once in your life?" he demands.

"You are _so_ conceited," I rant, snatching my wrist back. "You think you know everything!"

"You keep trying to make this about me, but we both know it's about you," he deflects, slicing through my barricades. "I'm not the one who decided for both of us that we couldn't make it work. I'm not the one who stormed in here in the middle of the dinner rush to pick a fight. I'm not the one who was about to turn tail and run without admitting why."

"There's no point!" I counter shrilly. "It's over! It's not like I can just backpedal on all of it and expect you to be there waiting for me with a smile and open arms!"

"There you go, making decisions for both of us again!" he bickers loudly. "Goddesses, Zelda, just _get over yourself_ and stop trying to control everything for five seconds!"

"Fine!" I shout back, so propelled by anger that I'm willing to throw all caution to the wind just to spite him. "You're right! I've never been in a genuine relationship in my life! And I'm furious with myself because I realize I was in one with you, but I sabotaged it before it could go anywhere! And hearing you say that you would've fought for me is just pouring salt into the wound, because I would've given anything to see what that looks like just _once_!"

"Well I've got news for you, Zelda, this is what it looks like!"

I blink. My heart melts and I suddenly want to burst into tears, but he's still shouting at me so I instinctively stay in combat mode and it keeps me from falling to a complete mess on the kitchen floor.

"Me not letting you walk out that door when I know the only thing keeping us apart is your own pride _is_ me fighting for you! And don't you try to tell me if I'd have you back or not; that is _entirely_ my decision, and I'm not so spineless and egotistical that I'd let go of the best thing that ever happened to me without giving it another shot just because she's moody and has commitment issues!"

"Well, fine!" I blurt out, so confused I can't manage anything else.

"Good!" he shouts.

Two seconds later he closes the distance between us and crushes his lips against mine, kissing me so passionately that it seems like every roaring fire and billow of steam in the kitchen explodes at once, blowing the chaos away and thoroughly entangling us in each other until the argument and the world melt into an irrelevant blur and there's nothing in all of Hyrule that I want more than this.

Somewhere in the haze of it all, I hear Mikau pop his head out the out door and his voice carrying across the dining room.

"Hey, Gan-Man, your girlfriend is making out with my boss. I don't think she's coming back."


	7. Not My First Drive

It's not my first whatever, and who cares? I'm walking through the parking garage, my pulse racing, and my mind is too tangled to think about what this even vaguely reminds me of.

I had been standing with her in the kitchen, her face in my hands, and I'd wanted to fix all of it right then.

"I want to talk," I'd said, and she'd nodded weakly, looking flustered and breathless.

And then, as though on cue, a pan had clattered to the floor, reminding me that there was literally no worse time I could've chosen to abandon the kitchen. It was the Friday night dinner rush, and it was even more brutal than usual. I had spun my head around, staring frustratedly at the clock as I tried to work out a solution.

"Give us one hour," Mikau had said to Zelda, appearing as if from nowhere. "That should get us through the worst of it, and then we can survive without him."

Survive was an apt word. It would be awful. Which made me that much more grateful for the gesture. I gave her my keys and asked her to wait for me in the car.

Which is why I'm hurrying through the garage now, hours before closing. Epona is sitting where I left her, showing no signs of life except for the dim ambient lighting that activates when she senses a passenger. I can't make out Zelda's face through the tint, and for some reason that puts my stomach in knots. I take a calming breath as I grip the handle. And then I climb into the car and close the door.

I dare to glance at the girl in the passenger seat. Her hands are locked together in her lap, and most of her face is shrouded in a pretty curve of styled hair. She sniffles once into the thick silence hanging between us. Finally she turns to look at me, her brilliant blue eyes ringed red and glistening with the onslaught of new tears.

"I'm really, really sorry," she croaks quietly.

I nod, not really sure what else to do. The silence falls back into place. It's the dense kind, like the sort that covers everything after a huge snowfall, so quiet it's almost a sound in itself. I sigh gently, trying to pick the uncooperative words out of my brain.

"Zelda, I just…" I shake my head once, reaching for the rest. I'm staring at the dashboard. It isn't inspiring at all. Finally I just close my eyes. "I just want to know what you want."

It's a while before she answers. Her face is turned away from me, towards the window, as though there's anything worth looking at in the empty spaces beside us. Her voice is so small when it comes, like it's been crushed and then compressed by her own hopelessness. "You."

Warmth, reassuring and pleasant, unspools in my ribcage, and I tiredly retrieve the keys from the cup holder and turn them in the ignition. She glances over, a little startled.

"Let's go somewhere," I encourage her softly.

She hiccups once, and whispers, "Where?"

"Anywhere," I shrug, leading Epona out of her parking space.

We reach the street, and she manages a small, weak smile for me as I turn towards the waterfront.

The streetlamps bathe her in pulses of soft light as I drive, making her look more ethereal than ever. The ride is silent at first except for the gentle purr of the engine. But the anxiety I felt before is ebbing away. Just being with her like this makes everything seem less insurmountable. I can see the worry in her posture, though, in the distant look in her eye and the little pucker between her brow, and I try to ease her out of it as I turn onto the parkway hugging the shoreline.

"Talk to me, Zelda," I prod her quietly.

Her mouth tugs down and she absently takes the edge of her thumb between her teeth, staring over the water. "I don't even know where to start."

"It was the university gala," I remember with a twinge of distaste, unconsciously gripping the steering wheel tighter. "I didn't notice it then, but something changed in you that night."

"Midna," she murmurs, and I glance at her, surprised.

"What about her?"

"She knows me so well," she sighs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear absently as she ponders. "I've always been leashed to the expectations of people around me, never shirking duty or tradition. Always doing the practical thing. So when she saw me with you—someone she knows I would normally have never considered—she assumed I didn't intend for the relationship to go very far, and she warned me not to let you get too involved. I hadn't let myself think about it until then." She pauses, pursing her lips, her eyes shrouded in thought. "I realized that she was right—that if I didn't really have serious intentions, that I would be hurting you. And I didn't know if I did or not—and even if I wanted to, how could I reconcile that desire with the life I'd laid out for myself? You were an unexpected variable. I didn't know what to do. So I just…"

She trails off, and I keep my eyes fixed on the road, trying to come up with a response. But she starts up again before I can, sighing once.

"I know it's no excuse. I just panicked."

"Because you do want something serious?" I ask, just to be sure. Just because I want to hear her say it. Just because, after the roller coaster I've been through the last three weeks, that admission would make me happier than anything.

"I…" She chews her lip absently. It's so hard for her. Which only makes my chest swell tighter when she finally says, "Yeah, I do."

"Ok," I nod, really and truly trying to keep my cool. This feels so fragile, like an orb of glass that one clumsy reaction on my part will send shattering at my feet. "Good."

"Good?" she echoes, turning to me with a timid smile. "Really?"

"Zelda—Gods," I mutter, shaking my head once in disbelief. How can she not know? What could she possibly think I might say? "You know I'm crazy about you."

She smiles at her lap, and it's dazzling. All I want to do is stare, and suddenly the driving is an unwelcome distraction.

I pull into the next turn off, where there's a small lot facing the water, and park the car in an empty space. There's plenty, since it's a chilly night already and the wind coming off Lake Hylia is pretty brisk. I shrug off my jacket as I climb out of the car, and she lets me help her slip it on when I meet her on the other side. Then I take her by the hand and lead her down the abandoned walkway that lines the shore.

Her ears, nose, and cheeks are turning pink from the wind, but she's still smiling as she huddles down into my jacket. She sniffles, and at first I think it's from the cold; then her tears catch the moonlight, and I smile, pulling her frozen nose against my chest and wrapping my arms around her shoulders as I kiss her hair again and again.

"Link," she chokes, laughing and crying at once as I do my best to shield her from the wind.

I kiss her ear, pressing my face into her hair and breathing deep. I whisper, "Zelda."

She pulls back gently, her expression suddenly more somber—looking for something she heard in my voice, perhaps—and we stand, silent, haloed in the moonlight glistening off the choppy waters.

I slip my hands under the jacket, pulling her against me, and kiss her slowly. The winds are biting and it's way too cold for this walk, but wherever we're touching we're keeping each other warm, and in spite of the unwelcoming night neither of us move to go back.

She touches my face with icy fingertips. I slide my hands out from under her jacket, stifling a frown, and enclose her cold hands in my warm ones. Her cheeks are flushed—I know it's only partly from the cold—and in spite of my inclination to do otherwise I let her go so I can lead her down the way and find something to keep her hands warm.

We cross the street and drift into a tiny coffee shop tucked away along a dike, and she orders something drizzled in way too much white chocolate. She cradles her drink in both hands against her mouth when we head back out into the cold, smiling privately. She looks content; then she feels my eyes lingering on her face, and her gaze slides over to mine, peering over the white lid.

"What?" she prompts.

I take a long drink before I answer, mulling. I want to tell her awful it was without her. I want to tell her that I want to be the thing she runs _towards_ when she's afraid. I want to wrap my arms around her and prove that _I_ can keep her warm. I want to be with her forever. I want to love her.

But I don't think she's ready for that yet. The idea knots in my mind, prodding me unpleasantly.

I smirk and say instead, "Tell me about Ganondorf. He seems nice."

She drops her face into one hand, abashed, but I catch smile playing on her expression. "He's arrogant, and shallow, and utterly self-absorbed."

"Rich though."

"Spoiled."

It's easy to be generous, since she left with me instead of him. "I'm sure he wasn't all that bad."

"He was," she insists. "Inconsiderate and vain; not what I'm looking for at all."

"Oh no?" She drops her left hand from the cup without looking at me, and I casually let my fingers tangle loosely in hers. "What are you looking for?"

"Someone kind," she says, her eyes alighting gently in a way that makes my heart stammer. "Someone honest and genuine. Someone who's as stubborn as I am."

"That's a tall order," I interrupt wryly, and she gives me an unconvincing scowl.

"Someone who wears Crocs on romantic strolls by the water."

I tilt my head in acquiescence, smirking down at my work clothes. I don't look my sharpest. Her fingers curl a little tighter in mine, and the way her eyes are smoldering into mine makes my pulse quicken.

"Someone I could give myself to and know I'd never regret it."

I can feel something hot and wonderful glowing behind my ribs, a strange wave of contradiction that I don't think I've ever felt before. Like I could fly, but I'm too grounded; like a pulse of pride and humility at once; like a cold fire that burns everything but destroys nothing.

"Are you sure we're not still talking about Ganondorf?" I manage, breaking the spell before it can drive me insane. "Because it feels like we're still talking about Ganondorf."

She laughs aloud, a beautiful sound like rain on smooth stone and water, and she throws herself onto her toes to kiss my cheek, making us sway as we walk. She grabs my arm, holding herself tight against it. "You are impossible. And wonderful. I missed you."

I take my arm back and put it around her neck, pulling her closer so I can kiss her hair again. "I missed you, too."

The path forks and we drift closer to the shore, stepping onto the old dock that stretches over the tumbling dark. The sound of creaking wood and lapping water drowns out the distant drone of the city as we walk, and at the end of it we sit and let our feet dangle over the edge. I finger my cup, thinking. The tangled knot in the back of my mind is still jostling, barbed, against my skull.

"Zelda," I murmur, and she tilts her head gently, her hair falling in pretty waves across her shoulders.

"Yes?"

"I think…" Gods, what do I think? I take a slow breath, trying to clear my head. She must have noticed the tension creeping into my shoulders, because she stiffens too. "I think I need to be honest with you."

"All right," she murmurs guardedly, sitting a little straighter.

"There are things I want to tell you, but I don't know if you're ready to hear them," I begin slowly, staring at the cup in my hands. The dark water churning behind it feels like the tumble of thoughts churning in my brain. "I'm afraid that if you feel pressured, if you have any doubts going forward, at all… I just have this fear that one misstep will send you running in the other direction again, and I can already feel it coloring the way I treat you. I don't feel like that's a good place to start up again."

"No," she agrees, her brow furrowing as she stares into her lap. "That's fair. And I know that's my fault."

"I'm not trying to blame you."

"I know."

The water laps some more, filling the dead space.

"You asked me what Ashei and I talked about at the gala," I start, deciding it's as good a springboard as any. "I told her you were the best thing that ever happened to me. That you were beautiful, and smart, and sexy, and way out of my league. I told her I was falling for you."

I chance a glance in her direction; she's watching me, rapt, with those impossibly blue eyes.

"The thing is, after my parents died, I did shut down. I threw myself into my work, into making the _Domain_ , because I could control it. I could work hard, I could fix problems. But I was never close to anyone, not really. I wouldn't let anyone in. I didn't want to go through losing someone again. Then I met you, and I just… I don't know what happened."

I purse my lips, dithering in her attentive silence.

"But I do want something serious. And I don't just mean in general. I mean with you. I'm not trying to say we can't take things slow. I'm not impatient. I just want us to be on the same page, Zelda. I want you to know what I want. And I think I need you to be honest with me."

I glance her way, lobbing the dialogue in her direction. She stops to think, staring at her lap again. It takes her so long to respond, I wonder if she never will.

"Honestly, I'm a mess," she finally says, giving me an apologetic smile. "I ran away because I don't know how to be in a real relationship, certainly not with someone who doesn't fit squarely into the box I allotted for that. I still think my parents will be mortified, and I don't know what I'm doing, and that scares me, too. But I want to be with you. I want to have with you what I've never had with anyone else, in spite of myself."

I think that's probably the most honest she's ever been with anyone, including herself, and that's more than I ever could've asked for. I lean in slowly and cup her cheek, wearing a wry smile. "Well, we've all got to start somewhere."

We kiss on the dock, suspended between a swathe of stars above us and a reflection of them beneath, saying all the things with our lips and our hands that our words weren't quite able to get across. I think we both know that this isn't going to be the easiest thing we've ever done, but we want it anyway, and in a way I think that makes us stronger. Her hands are tracing my neck and my shoulders laxly, her mouth moving in tranquil tandem with mine.

There's no urgency. We both know we'll have more opportunities in the future.


	8. Not My First Decision

It's not the first time I can't make up my mind. And I feel like an idiot, because there's really no middle ground here, is there? Either it is or it isn't. I am or I'm not. We are or we aren't.

Maybe I'm just making too big a deal out of it. I mean it happens all the time, naturally, without divine intervention, to all sorts of people. Maybe the fact that I don't know is the answer. If it was, if _I_ were, I would know, wouldn't I? But sometimes we can't see what's right in front of us. Can't see the forest for the trees, as they say.

Am I oversimplifying it? Is it like a switch, flipped one way or the other with almost no warning? Or is it a gradual transformation, something more difficult to define that takes time?

The doorbell rings and I start, still undecided. But it doesn't matter. Not tonight. I don't have to have everything figured out right now.

So why is it bothering me so much?

I open the door wide, and there he is, his hands shoved into his pockets, smirking up at me from behind a curtain of bangs the color of winnowed chaff. His eyes are the same blue as the summer sky at twilight, glinting with the playful mischief I've come to expect. His smile grows as he watches me, and my stomach flutters.

I've gotten used to those details. Taken them for granted, even.

I wonder if that means something.

"Hey," he says, and my whole body seems to sigh at the sound of his voice.

"Hey," I answer, leaning against the door a little.

He lets himself in slowly. My apartment is decidedly utilitarian, full of books and bamboo finishes and metal inlays that feel more suited to a library or a coffee shop than a home. It doesn't really feel lived in, except when he's here; it feels warmer when there are two cups of tea on the coffee table instead of one, when I can hear the sound of someone else breathing.

My coursework had been especially demanding the last few weeks, but after I turned him down for a night out for the third time in a row on account of it, he asked if he could come over if he promised not to bother me while I studied. And then we did the same thing the next night, and then again two nights after that.

Now it's become something of a routine. His tea is already steeping on the end table, whorls of steam curling out of the mug, and the fireplace is on.

True to his promise, he makes himself as unobtrusive as possible, barely saying a word as we make out way over to the couch where we've spent the evening the last half-dozen times he's come over. He shakes out the throw as I reach for the book on top of the stack I've built for myself and crack it open at the bookmark. I recline against him and he drapes the blanket over us, wrapping one arm around me and opening his book with his free hand.

I felt bad about it at first. Who really wants to go over to their girlfriend's just to spend several hours reading together in total silence? But he says he doesn't mind. He says he wants to support my research. He says there's nowhere else he'd rather be. He says all kinds of ridiculous things that make me too warm. But the funny thing is, I've gotten used to it, and I'm really more disappointed than I ought to be when he can't be here.

I sigh unintentionally, and he shifts under me, kissing the crown of my head. And then he goes back to his book, because he promised not to bother me.

He always keeps his promises. He's always loyal, and honest, and patient, and just generally better to me than I deserve a lot of the time. I lose my place and have to start the paragraph over again.

 _Study,_ stupid.

He doesn't bother me while I read, per se, but he is distracting, especially recently. The second I let my thoughts wander to him, to _us_ , it's like I'm being swept downstream in a current. Everything seems so right between us, and that makes me feel like something's _wrong_. Like something's wrong with _me_. Like I'm holding back from giving him what I want to give him, and I don't know why.

And now I've lost my place again.

We've gotten to that place where the silence is comfortable, the movements are synchronized, the requests are voiceless and the fulfillments are practically involuntary. We're merging. It feels good; I thought it might feel like I was losing part of myself, or growing too dependent on someone else, but it doesn't. Which is why this nagging feeling that it's incomplete, that something is lacking on my end, is driving me so insane.

After a couple hours of rather unproductive attempts at reading, I let my book fall facedown against my chest, and I take a shallow breath.

"Link?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

There's a quiet shuffle as he closes his book and slides it onto the coffee table just outside my peripheral vision. His other hand wraps around me, too, so I'm enclosed in his arms, and I let my head fall back on his chest. His voice is quiet, reverberating in his ribcage under me.

"What's up?"

I take another breath as I rearrange my thoughts, trying to line them up in logical trains. At the moment, they're spinning around in little figure eights that go nowhere.

"Do you ever feel like answers are staring you in the face, but you just can't see them?" The fire is fluttering in the hearth, breathing, like an irregular heartbeat, and my own voice is quiet too, like I might put it out if I speak too loudly. The flames sound like cloth snapping in the wind, or the distant roar of forgotten water. "Like everything would be so much simpler if you could just stop trying to figure it out?"

"Are we still talking about your thesis?"

I smile just a little. Leave it to him to try to get a laugh out of me when he can tell I'm stressing out.

"I think that's normal," he finally decides, murmuring against my hair. "Everyone overthinks things sometimes. Some of us more often than others."

I hum in agreement, but don't have anything to add otherwise. He holds me tighter.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

It would be nice to talk, just for a while. We've hardly had a chance to recently, with all my projects piling up at once. But about this? Now?

Do I?

I glance at the clock on my desk. Half past ten. We have a little time. I reach beneath the blanket, letting my fingers tangle in his where they're weaved across my belly.

"Must be worse than I thought," he mutters at my prolonged silence, and I shake my head.

"No, it's not bad." I purse my lips, puzzling out the best approach as I try to isolate the real reason this is bothering me so much. I keep coming back to the same concept, this idea that closeness is fluid, and what it should feel like when it's whole. "Was your family very… I don't know… very demonstrative?"

"I guess." He shifts again under me, but I can feel his heartbeat thrumming steadily. "I never really thought about it."

"Did they hold your hand? Put their arms around you?"

"Sure."

I hold my breath. I know he can feel it, but I can't help it. "Say 'I love you' when you got off the phone?"

He pauses, processing. His reply is soft. "All the time."

"Does it bother you that I don't?"

He lets me go, slowly, turning me in his arms. His brow is furrowed as his eyes search mine, turbulent and aquamarine.

"Is that what you think?" he murmurs, troubled.

I feel a sting I can't quite pinpoint and I stare at my hands. "It's just—I know we both said we wanted something serious, and I know you're afraid of pressuring me—"

"It was my _parents_ ," he scolds me gently. "I know it's not the same thing."

"I know. I just don't want you to think—I don't—I don't know."

He sits up with me, rearranging us so he can look at me easier, and I'm starting to regret bringing it up. The room is perfectly temperate, but I feel cold without him.

"Zelda," he assures me earnestly, cupping my face and stroking my cheek with his thumb. "I don't have any expectations. I'm just happy to be with you. Don't drive yourself crazy thinking I want something more from you than you're ready to give."

"No, that's not it. I'm not. It's just that I—" I lean my forehead against my hand, trying to think. Maybe it's all the coursework turning my brain to mulch, but I feel like I can hardly get my own thoughts in order, much less communicate them. "Trust me, that's not it."

He drops his hand, studying me again. "Then what is it?"

I stare at him helplessly. I'm leaning further and further away from the switch theory and holding closer to the idea that this is something that happens over time, with gradient shades of intensity, so that you can be part way in and part way out at once. But how do you even begin to measure a spectrum like that? All I know is that watching him watch me with those anxious eyes, so eager to please, so desperate to champion my happiness, so full of confusion and concern, is making the idea of a spectrum feel less and less relevant.

"My family never was demonstrative. Not really. And I know better now—I'm older, I understand their upbringing, their priorities—but back then, sometimes I wondered if they did."

His eyes narrow as he scans mine, as he comprehends, looking for some evidence that he'd misunderstood. "If they loved you?"

"That sounds too dramatic," I amend flatly, but I don't contradict him beyond that, because it's exactly what I meant. "I just mean, I'm not good at… being expressive, in that way."

"I get that. That's fine, Zelda."

"But I—" I sigh shortly, frustrated. "I don't want to be like that."

"It doesn't bother me," he assures me again, trying to placate me. But it's not working. If anything, it just makes me louder.

"But I don't want you to think that I don't!"

"That you don't what?"

"Love you," I say, and silence falls over the room like a blanket.

His eyes are wide, scanning mine mutely. I know my expression must be mirroring his, and my heart is pounding in my chest, but I hardly feel it. He searches me a moment longer, and then his gaze drops and he swallows once. His eyes meet mine again, so tentative, so vibrant, and I want to burst.

"I… I don't think that."

"No?"

"No."

"Oh."

He's still staring at me with those impossibly blue, impossibly honest eyes, and suddenly, groundlessly, I feel a stab of doubt. I look down in a hurry, too afraid to hold his gaze anymore. He wasn't expecting it, and neither was I. And now it's been voiced, and I can't take it back, and he doesn't know what to do with me. I want to apologize, I want to tell him he doesn't have to respond. I want to open my book and bury my face in it and go back to the peace of five minutes ago and pretend this conversation never happened. But then he takes my face in his hands and he kisses me.

The kiss is so charged with emotion I could drown in it. His mouth is insistent on mine, fueled by desire and not by reason. I try to respond, but I'm too caught off guard to meet his intensity, and just let myself get swept up in his advance instead. It's full and desperate and passionate, and when he finally pulls away his eyes are bright, dancing with fervor and fire like I've never quite seen in him before.

He leans forward again, fixated on my mouth, but stops short. I can feel his breath skimming my lips, shallow and cool, and his hesitation is intoxicating and torturous at once.

He murmurs, his eyes flickering haltingly between my eyes and my mouth, "Do you love me?"

My own breath is bated now, making my chest tighten and barely delivering the air I need. The tension keeping us from touching is sprung taut, burning against my nerves like a single, fraying cord. My voice is scarcely a whisper.

"I…" I nod, numbly, hardly aware of anything except his proximity. "I love you."

His mouth pulls up fleetingly into the purest, sweetest smile, and he kisses me again—and again, and again, pressing forward until I tumble back onto the pillow on the armrest with a squeal.

"I know I said I didn't care, but I lied," he says, smirking wickedly, between tantalizing kisses, hovering over me. He pauses long enough to stare into my eyes, filling me with warmth, and says, "I love you, Zelda."

Heat and tension uncoil in my chest, slackening every muscle in my body at once, and I unsuccessfully try to hold back a smile as he kisses me again. He settles over me, pinning me down pleasantly, and when he lets me breathe I'm mesmerized by his eyes. They're depthless, glinting with a satisfaction that makes me feel too warm.

"I'm sorry I made you wait," I whisper, and I flush a little when I hear how breathless I am.

His smirk grows, and my flush deepens. "It was worth it."

My temperature is still rising, and all at once I feel like I'm burning. I bring him down to kiss me again, my pulse flying in my throat. I never want him to let me go. I want to stay like this, trapped in his embrace, forever. I hope he knows. I hope he can feel it in the way I move my mouth with his, in the way my cool fingers are trailing up the base of his neck and splaying through his hair.

He starts to pull away, kissing me once more for good measure when I tug on him in resistance.

"I love you," he tells me again, and then gives me a penitent smirk and says, "And now, because I love you, I'm going to go."

"What?" I breathe, deflated, scrambling to follow as he eases himself off the couch. I catch him by his shirt as we round the sofa, and he puts his arms around me obligingly. "You're leaving? Now? Why?"

"It's late," he murmurs, still smiling gently. "And you still have four chapters to finish."

Of course he noticed how little headway I made.

I relax my grip on his shirt. My hands are open, resting where I had grabbed him at the base of his ribs. He's watching them, and so am I, suddenly transfixed by the sensation of the firmness beneath the fabric, and when I try to breathe it's shallow. My awareness darkens on the edges, narrowing the channel between my surroundings and my brain as though all my senses have tunnel vision. What's leftover is only translating as physical. Very physical. Through the haze, it occurs to me that the lateness of the hour might not be the only reason he's leaving.

"It is late," I finally agree, meeting his eyes.

He gives me a sad smile, and then bends down to kiss me.

"I can't come tomorrow," he murmurs, and I quash the swell of disappointment that follows.

"I know," I smirk, putting on a brave face. "Friday night."

"Friday night," he echoes, touching my face, and then he sighs. "You make working for a living incredibly difficult."

A pleased smile breaks into my expression before I can hide it. "Sorry."

He smiles too. "You don't look sorry."

I can't argue with that, so I pull him in to kiss him softly instead. He sighs again and tangles his fingers in mine, leading me to the door. I wait while he slips on his shoes and his jacket, absently tracing my burning lips.

He opens the door when he's done and looks at me. There's so much in that look. Deep affection; something akin to victory; a gratitude I hadn't expected.

"See you this weekend?"

I nod. Then I test out these new, tremulous waters, and my heart sputters. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he smirks, pecking my lips again. "Bye."

"Bye," I manage, letting him go floatingly and closing the door behind him.

I linger at the door, waiting for the sound of his receding footsteps, which don't come at first. I bite my lip, holding my breath with a smile until I finally hear him head for the elevator. Then I turn and press my back to the door.

I could fly.

I love him.

I love his laugh, I love the way he looks at me when I'm talking too much, I love that I know I can count on him for anything. I love that he subjects himself to hours of my research just so he can put his arms around me. I love that he lets me win when we play board games because he knows how much I hate to lose. I love that he loves me.

I plop on the couch and plow my way through the last four chapters, but I don't retain much. That night I don't get a wink of sleep. I keep thinking of him, of _us_. And even though I'm sleep deprived, even though my coursework is a mess and I don't get to see him for another two days, I'm happy. I'm sublimely happy.

I'm beaming through my shower the next morning, and through my mundane routine. I'm beaming in the elevator down to the garage, and as I climb into the car and I pull out onto the boulevard, heading towards the university. I'm beaming in the early sunshine, basking in its warmth and in the brilliance that is the perfect start to this perfect day.

I'm beaming right up until the screeching tires and the impact of some lunatic doing 50 mph through a red light bring all of that perfection to an abrupt, breathless end.


	9. Not My First Hospital Visit

This isn't my first time driving to the hospital, and that just makes it so much worse.

It's a miserable haze as I make my way from the garage to the boulevard, past the building where she should be but isn't, through too many intersections and too many landmarks where there are too many memories, and all I can think is, _Not again._

_Not again, not again, not again. Gods, not again. Goddesses, goddesses above please, please, please, not again. Please, not again._

I replay the message over and over in my mind between frantic prayers, chanting the words _stable condition_ to myself like a mantra. I don't stop reciting as I manage to find an unlabeled parking space, or when I stop at the desk to find out where in Nayru's name they're keeping her, or as I ride the elevator up to the fifth floor when it would've been so much less painful to just take the stairs.

I hate hospitals. I hate the smell, the sterile, unventilated, chemical-laden air that reeks of plastic and cheap soap. I hate the colors that are never soothing and always too bright, whites and off-whites and off-yellows and off-grays smeared on the walls and tessellating the linoleum floors. I hate how all the corridors look the same, endless and repetitious, like a tangible manifestation of the maze our grief and our anxiety builds for us that we can't seem to escape.

524, 526, 528…

I hate how all the corridors look the same. Because every time you go down one, it makes you think of all the other corridors you've been down that look just like it. It reminds you of every other hospital visit, every other abysmal memory, every other loss, every other time you or someone you care about has suffered. It reminds you that someone is suffering right now. It reminds you that _you're_ suffering.

560\. The door is ajar.

All that walking, all the searching, and suddenly I'm afraid to even go in.

I push it open before I can think about it too much. The room is nice; it isn't one of those shared, two-bed rooms with the awkward curtain cutting it in half. It's just hers, painted in soothing browns. There are already balloons and flowers on the table beneath the window. I'm glad someone was here for her while I was blissfully ignorant.

I step back from the foot of her bed until my back touches the wall, and I exhale as I take her in. Her hair is tangled over her shoulders and partly obscuring the bandage covering part of her forehead. A gradient red and purple bruise is swelling over her cheek and brow on one side. Wires and tubes are sprawling everywhere. She's wearing one of those god awful hospital gowns. The paper bracelet is wrinkled and turned up at the end, which isn't terribly surprising since she's been here _since Friday_.

I don't know how long I stayed like that, propped up against the wall across from her bed, wishing I could look at anything besides her but unable to tear my eyes away. Her lips are too pale, like the life is draining right out of her. Her eyelids are pallid. From here, it doesn't even look like she's breathing.

I let myself slide to the floor and drop my head in my hands. My mouth has gone dry. It's all too real, too similar. Too familiar.

It's probably an hour before one of the nurses comes in to check on her and notices me. She's a fairy, no surprise there. They're natural healers, genetically wired to care and maternal to a fault. It helps that they can literally sense pain. I must be hurting something fierce, because she comes to check on me before she gets to Zelda. She kneels next to me, watching with those infamous fairy eyes that seem to know it all your worst fears and all the solutions, too.

"Are you Link?" she asks, giving me one of those comforting smiles that makes me feel like a kid again. I hate that. Kind of. There were a lot of those around when I was a newly orphaned 16-year-old. But I'm not sure how I would've survived without them back then, so I guess I don't hate them that much. "I'm Navi. Zelda's doing great. We've given her a sedative to help her sleep, but she'll be back on her feet in no time."

Her wings flutter gently, sounding like tiny chimes, and she brushes her feathery blue bangs out of her eyes. She gets to her feet when I don't reply, unbothered, moving to check the vitals visible on the monitor. She takes the chart and scribbles a bit on the clipboard.

"Will you be spending the night?"

"Yeah," I murmur, a little panicked at the thought of spending it anywhere else, and her wings twitch again.

"I'm glad," she sighs ephemerally. "She'll be happy. You're all she talks about." She puts the chart back where it belongs and turns just before she goes out into the hall. "There's extra blankets in the wardrobe, if you're cold."

 _If_ I'm cold, as though she doesn't know. Sly fairy. But she's already gone, and I get to my feet slowly, gravitating towards the bed.

There's an armchair beside it with dark blue cushions the color of Navi's hair. I take Zelda's hand in mine when I sit. Her heartrate monitor is getting in the way a little, and it's just the last, tiny straw that sends me careening over the brink that divides upset from devastated. I lean forward, closing my eyes tight as I press a kiss to her forehead.

A sigh shudders out of me as I lean my elbows on the edge of the bed, my hand still wrapped around hers. I'll be here when she wakes up, and I'll keep watch until she does. I'll protect her all night if I have to.

I whisper, hoarsely, "I'm really glad you're ok."

And she doesn't respond, because she's out like a light. Of course that's for the best. But a selfish part of me wishes she would open her eyes, just for a second, to reassure me herself that she will be.

I do go to the wardrobe and get a blanket eventually, because even though the thermostat is set reasonably I just can't seem to warm up.

Somewhere in the midst of my emotionally drained vigil, I fall into a restless sleep and dream of twisted metal and discolored tarmac.

When I finally tumble back into the hospital room, she's watching me with those unending, crystalline eyes. A tiny smile splits her face.

"Hey," she whispers.

Her voice is like a crack of lightning, and consciousness shunts vividly into the forefront of my mind.

"Hey," I reply eagerly, clumsily scooping her hand back up in mine. I search her face, her eyes, her bandages, for signs of discomfort. I'm a livewire, half expecting her to start hemorrhaging right there and then. "How are you feeling?" When she opens her mouth to reply, I add, quietly, viscerally, bitterly, "Please don't say you're fine."

That mutes her smile a little, but it's still there. "I'm ok," she promises. "A little banged up, but nothing that won't heal with bedrest. You should see the other guy."

She meant it as a joke, but I couldn't smile. I could only feel a foul, burning bile boiling in my stomach and clawing up my esophagus. She should see the other guy when I get through with him.

I press the back of her hand to my lips, and I murmur, "I'm glad."

An unnerving, penetrating understanding glistens in her eyes, and I don't know whether I want to shrink out from under it or pull her closer.

"I was really worried about you," she says quietly, squeezing my hand.

I scoff once, humorlessly. " _You_ were worried about _me_?"

But then she gives me that knowing look again, and the rest of my argument melts in my mouth. "I would've had someone call sooner, but my phone was—well, it wasn't working, and the sedatives had me pretty out of it for the first day or so, so..."

I frown against her hand as my mind automatically fills in the blanks, ending her adjusted sentence for her with awful, grisly words, like _mangled. Crushed. Shattered._ I hate that she's trying to protect me. I hate that she won't tell me how bad it was. I hate that I wasn't there for her when it happened, or for two days afterwards. But I can tell my misery is eating her up, so I try to bury it.

"That's all right. I'm glad you had other visitors keeping you company until I got the message," I add as lightly as I can muster, glancing at the flowers.

"From my parents," she admits, smirking crookedly. "They had lunch with me yesterday."

"Hospital food," I mutter, repulsed. "How bad is it?"

She smiles wider, happy that I'm playing along. "Pretty bad."

"Well, that's something I can fix, at least," I sigh. "What do you want? I can get you anything."

"Anything?" she echoes, and I love the excited gleam in her eyes. Her gaze shifts about as she thinks, and when she finally answers she only whispers, like she's afraid of being overheard, and her smile is beautiful. "I want a burger. With avocado and steak sauce. And I want fruitcake."

That brings a smile to my face in earnest.

"Grease, fat, and sugar," I mutter. I meant to sound disapproving but it really didn't shine through. "I'll bring it for you this afternoon."

"Thanks," she smirks, but then it fades a little, turning morose. "When it happened, I… I was really glad that I had told you."

My heart constricts painfully, but I manage to nod once. I can only think of her, bleeding, scared, covered in shrapnel, adrenaline flying through her arteries, not knowing whether she would live or die, thinking of me, thinking that she was glad she had found the courage to tell me she loved me. My smile is gone again.

I whisper, "Zelda."

The door opens slowly before either of us can say anymore and Navi flutters in again.

"Hey, sleepyheads," she says soothingly, and the muscles in my shoulders relax against their will. The crease on Zelda's forehead eases, too. All in all, it's hard to resent the interruption. "Link, can I send you to the waiting room for a bit?"

"Yeah," I say, a little breathless, and lift myself out of the chair.

Zelda smiles for me. I return it, weakly, and see myself out before I do something really stupid, like throw myself at Navi's feet and beg her not to make me go.

There's a carpeted alcove tucked into the hall not far from her door and I wander towards it. There's a single potted rubber plant in the corner, trying its best to make this place less dreary and failing pretty miserably, and the carpet and upholstery are too orange. I take one of the seats arranged neatly in the space and numbly scan the nondescript coffee table. It's cluttered with old magazines and watermark rings from a thousand Styrofoam coffee cups drunk over a thousand harrowing, sleepless nights.

I hate hospitals.

Another fairy passes my alcove in the direction of Zelda's room, and my ears perk when I overhear, "Good morning, Mr. Nohansen. Zelda's in the middle of her morning assessment, can I ask you to sit in the waiting area for a bit?"

I'm too overtired to panic properly, but I have wits about me enough to take a quick inventory as the father of the love of my life stalks to the chair across from me and eases into it with a preoccupied sigh. My shirt is untucked, my hair is probably an untamed mess and I haven't shaved, and if the way I feel is any indication, my rest of face isn't looking so great either. He's a little more rotund than I imagined, but no less dignified, with a regal posture that bespeaks a man who hasn't had the luxury of relaxing in the presence of others, ever. His nose, hands, and beard are large, too large, it seems, to have produced someone as willowy and elegant as his daughter. But his grey eyes are gentle and calculating, like hers.

I shuffle mindlessly in my seat, trying to figure out how to break the ice. He's looking through his folded hands into memory, or maybe imaginary paperwork. Given how unpresentable I am, I briefly entertain the idea of not confronting him just yet. He can go in and see Zelda first, and I can come back in an hour or so. He'll probably have left by then. She might mention that I was just there, and he might put two and two together, but I won't be around by then, and I'll give myself a shot at a better impression. It seems like the smarter option. I hate to leave her, though.

"So. You're the Link my Zelda won't stop talking about."

 _Crap_.

Our eyes link, and his betray nothing, inveterately conditioned to be passionless and unreadable. That probably comes in handy when he's sitting across from some hardnosed businessman, negotiating a contract, or cross-examining a belligerent witness during his prosecution, or interrogating a suspect in some homeland security case—Farore above, I don't even know what he does for a living.

I chance a glance down at my disheveled clothes. I'm a complete wreck.

A breathy, humorless laugh forces its way out, and I run a hand through my ridiculous hair. "Yeah."

Or maybe I should've gone with 'Yes, sir'? Or would that've seemed too juvenile? I don't know if he would've considered that a sign I lacked confidence or a sign of respect, but either way I've said what I've said so it's too late to backpedal now.

He doesn't extend his hand, so I don't extend mine. He scrutinizes me for a while, and I resist the urge to fidget. Hopefully he recognizes that I don't normally look this bedraggled, and I only do now because I spent the night sleeping at his daughter's bedside.

"She never mentioned you before," he murmurs, and my heart sinks a little. Not that I necessarily expected anything different, but it still stings.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I say wearily, because I am.

"The signs were all there, I suppose. We saw less of her, and when we were together she always seemed somewhere else."

I almost apologize for that, too. But I wouldn't have meant it. Even if my chances at a good first impression are completely shot, I don't want to start our relationship with a lie. I want to start it with the truth.

I hold his gaze for a moment, and then I tell him, quietly, "I love your daughter."

"I know."

I purse my lips and nod, staring absently at my hands. I mutter humorlessly, "She'll probably panic when she realizes we've met."

He grunts knowingly. "She thinks I won't approve of you."

"I know I don't measure up to your expectations," I murmur, resigned, meeting his gaze again. "But I love her. I'll support her in everything she does. I'll put her happiness before my own. I'll take care of her, no matter what. I—" I sigh once. I should be telling Zelda all of this, instead of keeping it to myself, or using it in some sad attempt to appeal to her father. "I hope that counts for something."

"It counts."

My eyes drift to the clock hanging on the far wall. It's ticking loudly, counting the moments of silence passing between us like some sentinel invading our privacy. This isn't going terribly. Not really. But this isn't how I wanted it to happen. It shouldn't have happened in this awkward orange alcove. It shouldn't have happened without her. It shouldn't have happened here at all.

I hate hospitals.

"She loves you," he says suddenly, unexpectedly, quietly, lost in some private thought, staring through the floor. "I can see it in her eyes."

He doesn't seem particularly pleased about that. I'd even go so far as to say he looks disturbed. But my heart swells. I already knew, of course. I'd known for a while. But hearing it out loud—from her, from her father, from anyone—makes it more real. It means it isn't just an abstract concept. It's valid. It's visible. It's tangible. The world can see it.

Maybe that's what bothers him. It means that, even without his good favor, there's a good chance Zelda and I would choose to be together. Maybe it makes him feel powerless. Powerless to direct the most important decision the most important person in his world will probably ever make.

I can't really blame him for that.

Navi flutters over from out of nowhere, her soothing, happy smile making the room several shades brighter.

"She's all set," she beams before she takes off down the hall.

I can't help smiling at her. Even he breaks into a small smirk that touches his eyes.

"I think I'll go get her breakfast," I decide as we get to our feet. "I'll just pop in and tell her I'm leaving."

He nods in acquiescence, accepting the gesture, and I scurry into her room to say goodbye.

She smiles at me. She looks better; she's sitting up, her bandages are freshened, and she's pulled the tangles out of her hair. But before she can say anything, I cross the room and take her face in my hands, and kiss her with every ounce of sweetness I can muster.

"Have I told you today that I love you?"

Her eyes crinkle when she smiles. "Not today."

"I love you," I whisper, leaning in for another kiss. "So much."

She lets me kiss her as much as I want, and I probably indulge a little too long. But when I pull away I feel renewed. I know we'll be all right. We'll make it through this, just like we've made it through everything else, and like we'll make it through whatever comes.

"I'm going to go get us some real food for breakfast," I smirk wryly, and while her smile fades a tiny bit, she nods. "I'll be back in a bit."

"Ok," she says, and I head towards the door.

I pop my head back in just as I'm crossing the threshold, and add, "By the way, your dad is here."

I pass her father in the hallway, and he gives me a subdued smirk as her delayed, horrified shriek sounds from the other side of the wall. " _What?!_ "

I glance back, and he's watching me from her doorway. Our eyes meet, and there's something brief in that exchange. Part of it was understanding. Part of it was resignation.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I could've sworn part of it was respect.


	10. Choices

She's leaning against my shoulder, lost in her own thoughts, when I decide.

I had made all these plans, conjured all these scenarios trying to get it just right, and none of them looked remotely like this. But in that moment, in that gentle strain of peace and silence, I knew I had to tell her right then.

We're just sitting in my apartment, watching a movie on the couch. It's so mundane. But the skyline looks nice, and she's as breathtaking as ever, and my heart is hurting I want to say it so bad.

"Zelda," I murmur, and she shifts against my arm.

She presses her mouth to my shoulder and murmurs, "What is it?"

I sit back a little so I can scan her eyes, and she shifts against the cushion, trying to get comfortable now that I've removed myself. She's propped her head against her fist, waiting. There's a glimmer of impatience in her posture, and it makes me smile on the inside. Because this is the Zelda I want, for as long as I live. This is the Zelda I'm ready to swear myself to forever.

I touch her lip gently and let my thumb trail to her chin, fixated on her mouth. I know she can feel the change in my demeanor. I can feel her trying to puzzle it out. Then I turn my gaze to hers, and I tell her, "I want you to marry me."

She stares for a long time, and the silence is heavy, throbbing with her heartbeat, or maybe mine. I keep waiting, hoping she'll eventually have some kind of reaction beyond the bewildered, troubled expression creeping across her face. She's taking so long I'm starting to lose my nerve.

"I know that probably seems sudden," I murmur, preferring anything, even my own stall tactics, to the sound of the nothingness. I try to search her eyes for some indication of what she's thinking, but she looks away.

"Sudden," she echoes, and releases a breathless, cynical laugh. "Ridiculous."

" _Ridiculous_?" I demand, not sure whether to smile or take offense.

She picks up the remote and mutes the TV, letting it clatter back onto the coffee table while she sorts her response. Her brow is furrowed and she's doing that thing where she chews the corner of her lip, so I know her mind is running a thousand miles an hour. Finally, she tucks a stray curl behind her ear with a huff, turning those pretty blue eyes on me and accusing me, "Just like that? Out of nowhere?"

"It's not out of _nowhere,_ " I counter. "I told you months ago I wanted something serious."

"You also said we would take it _slow_ ," she reminds me hotly, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah," I mutter, my voice suddenly husky as my mind floods with too many memories. "I guess that was before I was reminded how easily I could lose you."

She sighs quietly, restraining her argument for a moment. She knows how hellish that car wreck was for me. I couldn't sleep. I lost my appetite. It just brought back too much, and it took every ounce of courage I had to watch her get into her new car and drive away once she'd recovered.

Not that she's about to back down over it, of course.

"Link," she sighs, impatient with me and getting more flustered by the second. "You're always so impulsive!"

"I'm not asking on a whim," I argue quietly. "I've been thinking about it for weeks. I haven't been able to _stop_ thinking about it. I admit I wasn't planning on proposing like this, exactly… There was going to be a sunset or something..."

She's hardly listening, leaning her brow on her hand before she launches into more of the same.

"Don't you think you're romanticizing this just a little bit?" she demands. "We just get married? Then what?"

"Then we share our lives together?" I hedge, my brow furrowing as I try to figure out exactly what she's getting at.

"That's such an oversimplification," she huffs. "It's hard work! You don't just sign a piece of paper and live happily ever after!"

"I know—"

"And have you considered the logistics of this at all? Where would we live? How would we merge everything? We've never discussed this at all! I don't even know if you want a family!"

I can feel a smile starting to spread over my face, but I try to smother it a little. "I'm sure we'll figure it out."

She flushes, the pretty pink on her cheeks shining through the colors the TV is splashing over her face. I just want this discussion to be over with so I can kiss her.

"Well I can't live like that," she finally says. "I can't just make a series of snap decisions and hope for the best."

I hesitate, disappointed, as the finality of that registers. I take a tentative breath and ask, "Then… are you telling me no?"

"No!" she shouts, sounding aghast, and then turns her head away before I can make heads or tails of her expression.

But I recognize the tension in her shoulders, that artificial silence when she stops breathing. I reach over and take her face in my hand, bringing it back to me. Tears are streaming down her cheeks, her lips trembling as she tries not to make a sound.

"Zelda," I murmur, brushing her tears away softly with my thumb.

She's trying so desperately not to make eye contact as she tries to explain herself. When she finally looks at me, her eyes vitreous and pristinely blue, her answer is just a sad, muted warble.

"What if it doesn't work out?" she quavers softly. "What if you're asking me this with your eyes closed and—" she takes a tiny gasp of air and my heart squeezes, "and you decide you don't want me anymore?"

"Is that what you're so worried about?" I ask her gently, staring into those shimmering eyes I've fallen for a dozen times over by now. I let my mouth tug into a smirk. "If only you knew how ridiculous you sound right now."

I pull her into my arms and she crumples into my chest without resisting. Her tears are tumbling over my collarbone and I can feel her tiny gasps against my throat. I hold her tighter, pulling her into my lap. This is definitely not how I thought my proposal would turn out, but I don't regret it. I feel like I could take on the world for her. If only I could get her to agree to it.

"I love you, Zelda," I promise against her hair. "You know I do. You know that won't ever change."

She sniffles, weighing my sincerity against her fears, and then croaks, "But how can you know for sure that this is really what you want?"

I sigh gently, shifting as I settle us more comfortably against the couch. We'll probably be here for a while. I try to come up with something more profound, but the answer is simple. It's simple, and it's all I ever wanted.

"I'm tired of waking up and you not being there," I murmur. "I fall asleep thinking about you and you're the first thing I think about when I open my eyes. I want to give you everything that's mine, and I want to love you and protect you forever."

She's quiet for a long time, her head resting against my shoulder while she thinks. Then she props herself against my chest, slowly sitting up until we're face to face. Her eyes are glistening and reserved, trying to riddle out the pitfalls of a future no one could really know for certain.

"People think that all the time," she frowns. "They fall in love and don't realize how easy it can be fall right out of it."

"Like with your parents?" I coax her softly. It's not hard to see they merely tolerate each other. It's probably been that way for decades. She stares at her lap, but doesn't react otherwise.

"I just don't want you to be trapped," she whispers. "I don't want you to regret being with me."

I tilt her chin up, trying to get her to see reason. "Would you regret being with me?"

She searches my eyes, and then shakes her head gently. "No. Never."

My heart throbs at the unassuming, unadulterated confidence in her voice, and I can't help my smile as I lean forward to kiss her. "Then you are _way_ overthinking this, Zel."

She lets me have my way, lacing her fingers behind my head as I chase her mouth. I hold her flush against me as I finally take her lips in mine, reveling in the way she meets me partway. I can practically hear the gears still whirring her head, though, and sure enough words start spilling out the second I let her breathe.

"But what if—" I kiss her again impatiently, and when I run my tongue along her bottom lip she sighs softly against my mouth, "—it doesn't work out?"

"Then just divorce me and take half my stuff," I say breathlessly, kissing her again for good measure. "Losing everything would be worth it for a shot at a lifetime with you."

Her expression softens beautifully, and she says, more tears trickling down her cheeks, "Really?"

I smile hugely, knowing I've struck the mark, and wrap my arms tighter around her waist. "Really."

Finally, _finally_ , an emotion I had hoped for breaks through, lighting up her face with a dazzling smile and sending an overwhelmed sob rattling through her.

I ask her again, still holding her close, "Marry me, Zelda."

At first she can't speak, just nodding as the tears run their course. But then she gets a lungful of air and says, "Yes. Yes I'll marry you."

She barely gets the words out before I'm kissing her again. I can't help it; she's making me happier than I ever thought I could be, and I don't know how else to tell her. My head is swimming with the taste and the feel of her, sweeter and softer than anything in the world, when it suddenly dawns on me that something is missing.

"Din," I breathe. "The ring."

Her smile turns wry. "You had a ring?"

"Of course I had a ring," I growl, maneuvering us off the couch and towing her along to my room. I throw my nightstand drawer open, plucking the box out of its place.

I open it without thinking, checking to make sure it's still inside as though it might've just gotten up and walked away. It's still there. The delicate gold band is worked into ivy with tiny diamonds sunken into it where the leaves branch off, and the three triangle settings in the middle are dazzling brilliantly in the sparse light. I hear her gasp quietly; I realize I probably should've gotten down on one knee, or at least opened the box towards her so she could see it better—

"I'm doing this all wrong," I mutter breathlessly, fumbling to take it out of the velvet.

She shakes her head, laughing a little as she extends her left hand towards me. "It's fine."

My hands are shaking as I finally get it out of the box and my heart is hammering. The only sound in the room is our nervous panting, and I'm seriously beginning to doubt whether I'll have the dexterity to get it on her or not. But my hands go steady when I take hers in mine, and I slowly slide the ring onto her finger. For a second she only stares at it, and I let my nerves get the best of me.

"If you don't like it—"

"It's perfect," she whispers, and there's heat in her eyes when she looks at me that makes me feel too warm.

She throws her arms around my neck and I pull her into a fierce embrace. I just hold her for a while, letting the reality of her response sink in. Her mouth is pressed to my shoulder, and one of her arms is only partly draped across my back, held out so she can stare at her ring finger. But I know she's not just looking at a piece of jewelry. She's staring at a promise, at an unwritten lifetime. She's silent for so long I'm starting to wonder if she's regretting saying yes.

Then, finally, she pulls away, just enough so she can look me in the eye, and says, "Marry me now."

"What?"

"Let's get married. Right now."

I hesitate for a beat, my heart throbbing in my throat. "What about your parents?"

"I'll call them."

"You're ok with that? Without the dress and the reception—"

She presses a finger to my lips, silencing the rest. "I'm ok with that."

Now the gears in _my_ head are the ones spinning out of control. I feel like I'm getting swept downstream in the rush of all this, and I don't even mind. I take her hand in mine while I think, pressing my mouth to the back of it. I murmur, "I don't know where we're going to get a marriage license at this hour."

"There has to be a way."

She's looking at me with those eyes—the ones that make me feel weak and strong at the same time. The ones that, apparently, I'm incapable of saying no to.

I take her by the hand wordlessly and we track through the apartment toward the hallway where I grab my keys and a jacket.

Before I know it we're waiting quietly for the elevator. I'm staring at the silvery doors, half-expecting them to open to some other world. I have the strangest feeling of being numb and alive at once, like I'm lucid dreaming. But then she gives my hand a gentle squeeze, and the jolt it sends up my arm makes me certain I'm awake.

She flips her phone out of her pocket and starts dialing. "Maybe my father knows someone."

The elevator arrives with a dignified chime, and we step inside when the doors slide open. She has the phone pressed to her ear as they close, listening to the soft warble of the unanswered line and staring out over the skyline sprawling beneath us.

"Zelda," I murmur, "are you sure about this?"

She spares me a glance, nodding dismissively. "I'm sure."

There's a distinct click on the line as he answers, and I quell the rest of the pointless questions I was about to spew. Zelda isn't impulsive; she isn't one to let herself be bullied into anything or one to make rash decisions. I dwell on that for a bit, comforting myself with the reassurance of it while part of me strains, absolutely mortified, to hear her father's responses to the plethora of incriminating strings she's spouting, like _Link and I_ and _marriage license_ and _eloping tonight._

She hangs up after a surprisingly brief exchange and informs me, "He said he'll make a few calls and meet us at the courthouse."

She stuffs her phone in her pocket with the sort of ease that would accompany making plans to go to the movies. But I know in spite of how well she's holding it together that part of her is still terrified. It makes me appreciate the way she's willing to take a leap of faith with me all the more.

I link my fingers tighter in hers. "I love you, Zelda."

"I know," she murmurs pensively, letting her head tip back against the glass. "And I think you always will."


	11. Breakfast

I wake to the sounds and smells of breakfast wafting in from the kitchen. It takes me a moment to get my bearings—the bed and the room aren't a familiar sight first thing in the morning. And then something flutters in my stomach, because they aren't just his. They're _ours_.

The night before is a blur. The pregnant silence of the car ride; the simplicity of my own signature, suddenly changing everything; the way my father had looked at me; the way _Link_ had looked at me.

And then the coruscant, ardent things that had come afterwards.

I roll over in the veritable cloud of pillows and loose a breathy sigh. It's still hard to believe any of this is real, hard to believe that something so huge, so life-altering, could feel so… not huge, and normal. Because nothing has changed. And yet everything has.

I'm _married_.

And part of me is concerned that I'm not terrified or panicking. Because shouldn't I be? But I'm not. Everything was perfect. _He_ was perfect.

And I doubt very much that I will ever tire of waking to the sounds of him making me breakfast.

The shuffling in the kitchen stops and he emerges in the doorway not long afterward—shirtless, I note with some glee, and while part of me momentarily tries to shove the juvenile response aside, a larger part shoves back and tells it to shut up because he's mine now and I can do whatever I want.

"Shoot, I was trying not to wake you," he says, grimacing as he notices my attentive gaze, but his disappointment is short lived. He sets the tray on the foot of the bed with very little ceremony, smiling as he kneels on the mattress to greet me properly. He kisses me slowly—and long enough to suggest he's gone without for a very long time—and says when he's finished, "Good morning."

I dither between inquiring after what he was spending so much time on in the kitchen or pulling him back down to the mattress by the neck, but in the end my scientific curiosity wins out.

"What were you making me?"

His eyes glitter a bit, and it makes me glad I asked. He rolls to sit next to me and leans over to tug the tray closer.

"I've been thinking about what I was going to make you for our first breakfast for a while," he admits wryly, and my pulse heats at the way his eyes gently lock with mine. "Hungry?"

I nod, beating back a more aggressive response, and finally focus on the plate and its foreign offering. After a few seconds of unsuccessful deduction, I ask, "What is it?"

He cuts me a corner with the edge of a fork and assembles a bite, and smirks, leading it toward my mouth, "Just try it."

I'm tempted to refuse just to spite him, but if I've learned anything about Link it's that I will be missing out majorly on all things culinarily blissful if I don't trust his instincts when it comes to food. So I cave and take the bite, losing the will not to gush as the fork slides away from between my lips. When I've sufficiently recovered, and he's looking at me with that familiar, infuriatingly smug face, I compartmentalize what I can.

"Vanilla. Banana, nutmeg, cinnamon. Something alcohol. Brandy?"

"Do you love it?"

I arch a slender brow, trying very hard to be difficult. "What is it?"

"French toast."

"That is _not_ french toast."

"It's basically french toast."

He takes a lackadaisical bite while I swallow my pride and admit, "Yes, I love it."

"Good," he says, smirking gently, and I pry the fork out of his hand. He leans closer as I go to take some more, his eyes turning tentative, and presses his lips softly against my bare shoulder. "How are you doing?"

I can hear the hint of concern in his voice, something part adoration and part fear, and I sink down into the pillows, turning so I can see his eyes.

"You mean because I ran off and got married last night?" His mouth twitches, betraying the reflexive smile that wants to creep out at the mention of our escapade, and his eyes flicker to my lips, but he stays quiet, waiting for me to finish. I shrug noncommittally. "Not bad."

His smile breaks out at that, and he tugs me closer by the waist, hovering over me with a gentle expression in his eyes. "I'm serious."

"Stop worrying," I say, tossing my eyes in an meager attempt at flippancy. "Everything's going to be fine."

"I'm not worried about everything," he counters, and then leans down to drop a sweet kiss on my lips. "Just you."

He keeps going, kissing my cheekbone, the corner of my jaw, that tender spot between my neck and shoulder that makes my vision turn rosy, and I'm ready to ditch this conversation and move on to less wordy forms of communication when I hear a kettle whistle.

"Tea water's ready," he mumbles against my throat, and he pulls away to answer it, leaving me bereft. He gives me a penitent smirk and says, "I'll be right back."

I stuff a forlorn forkful into my mouth as he leaves, but then decide this is probably a good opportunity to check on my appearance. I peel the covers away and tiptoe to the bathroom, shivering a little at the cool morning air.

I plant myself in front of the mirror and grimace. My hair is a mess. My makeup is a day old. There's also evidence that suggests I was engaged in less than ladylike behavior recently: my lips are a little swollen and there's a trail of marks raised along my neck and collar that definitely weren't there before. In a happy turn of events, lingering on those details makes my eyes a little brighter and brings a gentle flush to my cheeks, and I decide I can work with that.

I give my hair a much needed tousle and clear away the sagging makeup around my eyes as best I can with my fingers and some tap water, and I open the mirror and dig out some mouthwash while I'm at it. I'm not exactly glorious but it's not bad considering my entire morning routine is still at my apartment.

By now I'm pretty cold, so on my way back to the bed I reach into his closet and pull out a button-up shirt. I smile without meaning to as I pull it on and free my hair from the collar—it smells like him. I had just worked my way up to fastening the button that might have made the outfit pass the bare minimum for modesty when I hear Link nearing the doorway.

And then the teacup he's carrying hits the floor and shatters.

My eyes snap up to his, and we stare at each other dumbstruck for a frozen, lingering moment. And then we both thaw and dive for the mess at the same time.

"Gods, I'm such a klutz," he breathes, and for some reason I'm feeling totally mortified. "I just didn't expect you to be wearing—"

"No! I know—I should've asked, it's just I didn't have a change of clothes—"

"Don't be ridiculous, I don't mind, I just—I'm going to get a towel."

"Ok," I squeak, fixating on collecting the teacup shards while he hurries past me towards the bathroom.I catch myself tucking my hair behind my ear too many times, and it makes me flush deeper.

He emerges just a couple seconds later with a hand towel and a trash can, and we resume sopping up the spilled tea and depositing what remained of the sacrificed cup in awkward silence.

"Um," he tries.

Finally I manage a nervous laugh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to surprise you like that."

"No, no, it's fine," he dismisses me, smirking privately. "It wasn't so much that I was surprised as it was that you looked—"

Our eyes lock. Suddenly his smile is gone and my cheeks start burning.

In the next instant he's reached across the distance separating us and pulled me into his lap, and his kisses are so insistent and heated that it's all I can do to remember to breathe. He lifts me suddenly and deposits me on the edge of the mattress with intent—

And then his cell phone rings.

His expression is unamused as he pulls away, and I bite my lip in a feeble attempt to mask a laugh; his eyes trail down to my mouth, and something about what he sees emboldens him.

"They can leave a message," he decides, diving forward again, and I reel at my own impudence as I skirt away.

"What if it's important?"

He wrinkles his nose at me as he concedes, reaching for the interruption where it's sitting on his nightstand.

"It's work," he grumbles, turning to sit on the edge of the bed as he answers. "What?"

I drape my arms across his shoulders from behind while I eavesdrop, enjoying the smooth planes of his back while he's distracted. I can hear Mikau's muffled voice on the other end, sounding irritated.

"That's right," Link says, actually a little penitent. "I had forgotten."

I plant a kiss on his shoulder and trace my fingers absently along his collarbone, and listen to Mikau demand how he managed that.

"I got married last night."

There's a beat of silence, and then a garbled reaction.

"I'll be in later. Tonight, maybe," he says, trying to placate him, just as I begin experimentally tracing the length of his perfectly tapered ear with my lips. He turns gently into it, evidently distracted, and murmurs, "Or maybe not."

He manages a shuffled dismissal over Mikau's panicked blathering before he hangs up on him and turns in my arms to pick up where we left off, reaching to replace the phone on the nightstand and missing so it clatters onto the floor.

"You can't just—" I object, breathlessly, between his advances, "—they need you to—"

"I got married yesterday," he counters, voice husky with desire, and my pulse races. "I'm on my honeymoon."

He turns his attention to my jawline, my neck, my throat, and somewhere in the blissful haze, eyes closed, I manage, "Not that your penthouse isn't lovely, but I had pictured something a little less pedestrian."

He hums in agreement, planting one last, chaste kiss on my collarbone before settling back to look me in the eye.

"I've been thinking about that," he says, smiling up at me lopsidedly. "Where do you want to go?"

"Honestly I… hadn't given it much thought," I admit.

A spur of the moment extended vacation was never on the agenda before, and while a honeymoon with Link had been becoming a more and more plausible scenario in recent weeks I had sort of shelved it behind other checkpoints.

"I could take you to Hebra," he murmured, drifting a little closer. "We could get a cabin and shieldsurf at sunrise, and then spend our nights under the stars and the Northern Lights in the hot springs."

I quirk an eyebrow, impressed. "That's adventurous."

"And then when you get tired ot the snow I can whisk you to Floria Falls, and we can stay in a treehouse in the jungle and watch the great dragon Farosh rise over the ten waterfalls with the moon."

He eases us back, cushioning me in the pillows, and I praise him softly, " _Very_ romantic."

"We could go to the coast after that, spend some time in a bungalow in Lurelin and snorkel in the reefs every day. Then travel north, stay in the real Domain in Lanayru and eat amazing food and wander the streets at night under the glow of the luminous stone spires."

Suddenly it hits me that none of these trips are hypothetical to him, and that they aren't separate. I stare as he carries on, my voice trapped somewhere in my ribs.

"We could tour every winery in Akkala, and then spend some time at the cliffs overlooking the sea. Death Mountain is sort of prohibitively hot; and I guess I could take you to Gerudo Town if you want to go, but I don't know if there's a lot we can do there together.

"What do you say, Zelda?" he asks, tantalizingly close now. "Do you want to take a trip around the world with me?"

Finally I blink, brow puckered. It's so unexpected, and wonderful, and perfect, and—

And I should have known.

"Really?" I whisper, voiceless, and even though he's wearing that smug smirk again I can't say I really regret it.

"Really."

He closes the last bit of distance, kissing me again—slowly at first, but then more deeply, more deliberately, as he senses my will to resist crumbling fast. Somehow he manages to unfasten enough buttons to coax my sleeve off my shoulder, and I realize too late that my window of coherent thought is all but about to close.

"Link," I breathe, scrambling with my last few seconds of lucidity. "What about work?"

"Work can wait."

"What about—" I don't even know why I'm being difficult. Old habits, I guess. "What about breakfast?"

That gives him pause. He spares the tray a glance, and I can hear the gears whirring. He's nothing if not doting, and I did say I was hungry.

"Breakfast," he echoes. "Yeah."

He's so apparently deflated that I can't help but laugh.

"It's ok," I try to appease him, "we don't have to eat it."

"No, no, eat," he demands, sitting up with me and dragging the tray closer. "No wife of mine will _ever_ be hungry. Not if I can help it."

I smile and kiss him sweetly. "All right," I accede, and as I reach for the fork I accidentally flip it off the tray, sending it clattering to the floor.

We both start at its violent trajectory and then laugh, and simultaneously say, "I'll get it."

And as we reach, forms stretching, legs entwining, bodies touching, and our hands meet just shy of the silver handle, I catch his eyes sweeping me once before they lock, utterly lacking contrition, with mine.

And then we forgot all about breakfast.


End file.
